This book addresses how computers affect people's everyday lives. Using actual situations and problems that people have encountered with current software applications, this book offers academics ways to examine how new situations are created through computer use. It contains some of the very first papers on very important topics including the AEGIS disaster, the intriguing new world of MUD environments, and community networks, including a study of Community Memory in Berkeley, possibly the world's first community computer system. The first half contains critical studies, in which the authors explain ways of describing real situations where people are already using computers. This situations are often problematic and much more complicated than the scenarios that the designers envisioned when designing the system. The second half of the book contains constructive studies, reporting experiences in trying to build systems in new ways, with a fully developed consciousness of what people need and the interactions between computer systems and social systems.

This book offers a critical reconstruction of the fundamental ideas and methods of artificial intelligence research. Through close attention to the metaphors of artificial intelligence and their consequences for the field's patterns of success and failure, it argues for a reorientation of the field away from thought in the head and towards activity in the world. By considering computational ideas in a large, philosophical framework, the author eases critical dialogue between technology and the social sciences. AI can benefit from an understanding of the field in relation to human nature, and in return, it offers a powerful mode of investigation into the practicalities of physical realization. This is one of a series of publications associated with the Earth System Governance Project. For more publications, see www.cambridge.org/earth-system-governance.

This book offers a critical reconstruction of the fundamental ideas and methods in artificial intelligence (AI) research. By paying close attention to the metaphors of AI and their consequences for the field's patterns of success and failure, it argues for a reorientation of the field away from thought and toward activity. By considering computational ideas in a large, philosophical framework, the author eases critical dialogue between technology and the social sciences. AI can benefit from an understanding of the field in relation to human nature, and in return, it offers a powerful mode of investigation into the practicalities of physical realization. Researchers in AI and cognitive science will welcome this timely discussion.

This book addresses how computers affect people's everyday lives. Using actual situations and problems that people have encountered with current software applications, this book offers academics ways to examine how new situations are created through computer use. It contains some of the very first papers on very important topics including the AEGIS disaster, the intriguing new world of MUD environments, and community networks, including a study of Community Memory in Berkeley, possibly the world's first community computer system. The first half contains critical studies, in which the authors explain ways of describing real situations where people are already using computers. This situations are often problematic and much more complicated than the scenarios that the designers envisioned when designing the system. The second half of the book contains constructive studies, reporting experiences in trying to build systems in new ways, with a fully developed consciousness of what people need and the interactions between computer systems and social systems.