The evolution of the Computers and Writing Conference, the second decade

This article, written for the twentieth anniversary of the Computers and Writing Conference, is the sequel to “The Evolution of the Computers and Writing Conference” (Computers and Composition, 12(3), November, 1995). The earlier article analyzed many of the intellectual concerns, values, and language expressed in presentations at the Computers and Writing Conference from 1982 to 1994. This article does the same for the second ten conferences, 1995-2004. Throughout the second decade, we have developed a new comfort with computers, expanded our idea of “writing” beyond the traditional essay, and gained a respected place in the academy. Computers and writing has become an institution. At the same time, we sometimes worry about losing control over our teaching and can feel overwhelmed by the size of the task we undertake. Many of our values have stayed the same; however, we are optimistic about the place of technology in our work and in the culture at large, we love to experiment, and we routinely weave ideas from other disciplines and other areas of our lives into our computers and writing research.     

Computers,Computation, and Problems

Abstract

The automatic recognition of targets involving significant intraclass variations is a challenging problem if the solution is constrained by practical implementability considerations. In the case of Gaussian intraclass variations the exact solution is implementable but in a somewhat complex way. The exact solutions of non-Gaussian cases are, with few exceptions, not implementable. We have developed a systematic approximation procedure for obtaining implementable solutions for these cases. Analysis of the approximation errors is given.     

Computers,myths and development

The paper discusses the question of the extent to which computers contribute to the development process of the Third World. An answer is not easily found as long as the evaluation is primarily quantitative and the most common measure seems to be the total number or value of computers installed. The computerization process is discussed from both global and developing perspectives and, with reference to other writers, the importance of qualitative measures is emphasized. The case of Egypt is taken as an example: the number of installed computers seems impressive but as most of these belong to the technology of the mid‐1970s Egypt has a low computer capacity at a high cost. Finally, the paper raises the question of whether the contribution of computers to the development process is a myth.     

Computers, programming and people

Now part of consumer society and marketed globally, computers are designed to be sold rather than used. Software marketers, e-businesses, and their technicians consider having an understanding of how the underlying machinery works to be utterly irrelevant. For them, the most important skills are marketing, management, and graphical expertise. The profession should strive to make it easy for people to exploit the computer on their own terms in their own culture. The symbolic programming system should be completely straightforward, but adaptable to different writing systems. Any complexity should be subsumed by the operating system or concealable within the macro-coding system     

Computers,Justification, and Mathematical Knowledge

The original proof of the four-color theorem by Appel and Haken sparked a controversy when Tymoczko used it to argue that the justification provided by unsurveyable proofs carried out by computers cannot be a priori. It also created a lingering impression to the effect that such proofs depend heavily for their soundness on large amounts of computation-intensive custom-built software. Contra Tymoczko, we argue that the justification provided by certain computerized mathematical proofs is not fundamentally different from that provided by surveyable proofs, and can be sensibly regarded as a priori. We also show that the aforementioned impression is mistaken because it fails to distinguish between proof search (the context of discovery) and proof checking (the context of justification). By using mechanized proof assistants capable of producing certificates that can be independently checked, it is possible to carry out complex proofs without the need to trust arbitrary custom-written code. We only need to trust one fixed, small, and simple piece of software: the proof checker. This is not only possible in principle, but is in fact becoming a viable methodology for performing complicated mathematical reasoning. This is evinced by a new proof of the four-color theorem that appeared in 2005, and which was developed and checked in its entirety by a mechanical proof system.

Computers,postmodernism and the culture of the artificial

The term the artificial can only be given a precise meaning in the context of the evolution of computational technology and this in turn can only be fully understood within a cultural setting that includes an epistemological perspective. The argument is illustrated in two case studies from the history of computational machinery: the first calculating machines and the first programmable computers. In the early years of electronic computers, the dominant form of computing was data processing which was a reflection of the dominant philosophy of logical positivism. By contrast, artificial intelligence (AI) adopted an anti-positivist position which left it marginalised until the 1980s when two camps emerged: technical AI which reverted to positivism, and strong AI which reified intelligence. Strong AI's commitment to the computer as a symbol processing machine and its use of models links it to late-modernism. The more directly experiential Virtual Reality (VR) more closely reflects the contemporary cultural climate of postmodernism. It is VR, rather than AI, that is more likely to form the basis of a culture of the artificial.     

Computers and the Humanities

It is as difficult, and perhaps as silly, to try to present the field of computing in the humanities in one special issue, as it would be to present computing in business, say, or the scientific applications of computers. Nevertheless, the effort seems worth making. Much of the work in this area is genuinely interdisciplinary: for interdisciplinary projects to take shape and to prosper, it is essential that workers on one side of the line be regularly reminded of what is happening on the other.     

Information, Ethics, and Computers: The Problem of Autonomous Moral Agents

In modern technical societies computers interact with human beings in ways that can affect moral rights and obligations. This has given rise to the question whether computers can act as autonomous moral agents. The answer to this question depends on many explicit and implicit definitions that touch on different philosophical areas such as anthropology and metaphysics. The approach chosen in this paper centres on the concept of information. Information is a multi-facetted notion which is hard to define comprehensively. However, the frequently used definition of information as data endowed with meaning can promote our understanding. It is argued that information in this sense is a necessary condition of cognitivist ethics. This is the basis for analysing computers and information processors regarding their status as possible moral agents. Computers have several characteristics that are desirable for moral agents. However, computers in their current form are unable to capture the meaning of information and therefore fail to reflect morality in anything but a most basic sense of the term. This shortcoming is discussed using the example of the Moral Turing Test. The paper ends with a consideration of which conditions computers would have to fulfil in order to be able to use information in such a way as to render them capable of acting morally and reflecting ethically.     

LSI Modular Computers, Systems, and Networks

Modular LSI-based design makes possible new patterns of computer and network organization, providing greater computational power and flexibility.     

People First, Computers Second

Although systems designers haven't yet successfully integrated computing into healthcare in the ubiquitous sense, healthcare has the potential to be a well-matched application domain for pervasive computing. The pervasive computing research community should face this opportunity-and the associated challenges-head-on.