Schaffer's article introduces a computer to be a worker who undertook calculations in connection with compiling navigation charts, astronomical tables, etc. He also leads us to understand how 'intelligence' emerged out of a very particular set of social and labour relations back in babbage's era. It was babbage's understanding that the intelligence of a machine lies in the necessity of their source of power, i.e. the labour force that surrounds and runs them. That is to say that machines with higher intelligence could be run even if the labour force running them were to disappear. So now that we have a definition for intelligence, lets go on to how it bears marks of class and gender.
From this definition, it is easy to see that as machines become more intelligent, more of the labour force required for work in manufacturing disappear. People with Mechanist argue that the intelligence of machines involved in active manufacturing in any era divides all workers of the system into the low class artisans and the higher class management. This is because machines are a one time investment, normally require relatively very low maintenance as compared to human labour. These artisans began to lose their status starting with the copying of nature's movement in the defecating duck. This has been discussed in the previous blogpost. Here, Schaffer gives specific importance to the word 'Computation' as Babbage's difference and analytical engines breached this new level to redefine and bear a mark of class. It redefined the intelligence, i.e. those processes and work that can be automated from those that cannot. Though Babbage's influence was mostly political, the manufacture of the difference engine involved large amounts of initial investment, and human computers weren't done away with back in his day. But it laid the foundations for further research, which went on to separate functionality with mechanical design( hardware and software ); and the effects of Babbage's difference engine on the line separating the low class artisans from the intelligent head was seen through the 20th century. The importance of the difference engine was that 'computation' now fell below the line. The earlier mechanistic belief that all systems consisted of an independent mind that controls a mechanical body; was hit as 'computation', a thing of the mind, could now be mechanized.
But now that we have understood how computation and intelligence bear marks in class, we shall look at how it does so in gender. But, for doing so, we shall assume( not discuss ) the fact that intelligence is a trait of the mind and the body symbolizes everything mechanical and non-intelligent. To understand how it affects gender-biasing, we shall look at Plant's study of Ada Lovelace's life, achievements and how they were taken by the society. Though it was Babbage who invented the difference engine, it was Ada's idea of combining traits of the jacquard loom and the engine to give the programmable analytical engine. Here programs could be fed in using punch cards, just as in a jacquard loom where each punch card represents the stitching of 1sq in. But, in excerpts, Ada is described to be hysterically in love with maths. It was considered hysteria if a woman does math, a solution was seen in getting her pregnant, while it was seen to be perfectly normal in men like babbage wherein the body was of no significance.
Ada was considered fortunate to have math tutors,etc and wasn't easily permitted to participate as a full member of the community of scientists. The society forced Ada to believe that she herself was doing too much math, driving her to use opium. Over time, these ideas were overturned, as being imaginative and eccentric became the mark of genius, while women were considered too 'practical' to be pathbreaking scientists.
Thus, a struggle with the body became a kind of struggle with gender, where the body itself became feminine while the mind became masculine. And then of course comes freudian thinking, which takes the same ideology to radical heights.
-Amit M Warrier
-EE09B004
References:- Schaffer and Plant
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