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Re: Can software have human attributes?

Subject: Re: Can software have human attributes?
From: Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com>
To: "TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 13:16:55 -0700

Jason Willebeek-LeMair wrote:


Bingo! Usually, the rules against anthropomorphizing software fall into the
category of ascribing feelings and motivations to the software.

Since this thread started the other day, I've been waiting for someone to suggest why anthropomorphizing software is undesirable. So far, all that anyone has managed is to cite an authority. No one has actually been able to offer a practical reason.

I mean, all jokes aside, it's not as if anyone is really going to develop the mistaken belief that computers are sentient beings, are they? Nor are they going to get a misleading view of what's happening.

(Apropos of this last statement: I remember a novel by Philip Jose Farmer, set on an alternate Earth in which psychiatry was replaced bya carefully categorized set of demons. The demons were exorcised by rites that involved the victim talking to shamans about their childhood, and so on. Despite the difference in agency, the two theories had very similar practices and results).

Anyway, what I wanted to ask: can anyone defend the prohibition? Or should it be filed under "arbitrary practices" alongside the ban on the double negative and ending a sentence in a preposition?

--
Bruce Byfield 604.421.7177 bbyfield -at- axionet -dot- com

"For this land that you leave has had too many martyrs,
Too many people who've perished in vain,
Too many ships slipping out of the harbours,
With cargoes that never came homeward again.
-Battlefield Band, "The Green and the Blue"


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