What
type of world are engineers thinking of when they build the technological
devices of the information society ? What role do they give to people
in this world ? An anthropology of aeronautics, with the help of history
and semiology, developed by Victor Scardigli of the Institut de
recherche interdisciplinaire en socio-économie (Institute
of Interdisciplinary Research in Socio-Economics) provides an answer.
With
the development of cockpit engineering, one aim has been to replace
those involved in flight by machines. Automation is spreading : the
highly computerized Airbus 320 has already challenged the pilot's
superiority inside in the cockpit. Data-link networks could soon connect
a large number of planes and decision centers, bringing about a kind
of technological sociability between navigation and surveillance computers
that would supplant traditional interaction between humans. However,
on several occasions, this trend has been thwarted by pilots and controllers.
Does the reluctance of the users reveal an irrational, anti-scientific
attitude or self-interest ? Ethnological observations began with the
early stages of aircraft designing and continued to flight tests and
certification, and then to ordinary use of these tools in the daily
work of pilots.
Two
human communities with diverging cultures came to light. When engineers
build the technological framework for tomorrow's civilization, they
implicitly refer to their own vision of the world, based on an abstract
understanding of time and space, accidents and human factors. Distrusting
the user's human motivations and weaknesses, they deny his/her expertise
and autonomy. They have set themselves the mission of improving humans
or replacing them with perfect machine copies. They are working towards
a scientific and digital utopia. But the users - and the citizens
- of this information society will keep to their own, more composite
vision of the world: one where science and intuition, empirically-based
expertise and tradition are combined. Flight systems follow the designers'
Cartesian logic, which is sometimes quite different from pilots' experience.
An analysis of several incidents suggests that there is a consequent
risk of major disaster.
This
anthropology of "digital modernity" reveals not only cultural
misunderstanding, but also a threat to affective life, to sociability,
indeed, to the very definition of human nature. Our civilization has
reached a crucial time as it dedicates its efforts to technological
development that is increasingly distant from the expectations of
citizens.
