Dear Susan,
The noun “agency” has within it a kind of ambiguity that is not always clear. It is one thing to speak of “agency” as the positive capacity of ethical responsibility in making decisions. It is another to speak of “agency” in the sense that agency is the embodied but not purposive ability to act in carrying out decisions.
While machines may well have agency in the second sense, they do not have agency in the first sense.
In the second sense, Tony Fry is right to suggest that “that designed things have an agency in excess of the agency we intend them to have.” If that is what he means by agency, then it is possible to speak of “the agency of non-human (and, specifically, designed) things.”
If, however, he means that designed things have ethical responsibility, I’d disagree. I understand the argument, but it seems to me incorrect.
There are several ways to describe the problem. While “designed things have an agency in excess of the agency we intend them to have,” we can also describe this as the unintended consequences of the designers who design those designed things. The designers remain responsible.
To go beyond this, suggesting that designed things are themselves responsible seems to me an argument that does not bear discussion outside the frame of a thought experiment.
If we can ascribe agency to designed things in the sense of ethical responsibility, then one could argue that the gas chambers and the railroads had as much responsibility for the Holocaust as the Nazis did.
It is precisely this kind of argument around ANT that troubles me. I’m prepared to accept ANT arguments for how things work in systems. I’m troubled by the strong sense of the argument. To say that “post-humanist approaches to thinking about agency challenge the assumption that human agency is independent of non-human agencies.”
Human beings may get things wrong and often do. Only ethically responsible agents can take responsibility for improvements. Since designed things carry on as they are designed to do, they cannot take responsibility for improvements. The essence of design remains acting to create a preferred future state by solving problems, meeting needs, improving situations, or creating something new or useful.
Yours,
Ken
Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design |Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> | Ph: +61 3 9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design>
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Susan Stewart wrote:
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Perhaps the difference between agency and intention is being blurred in what has been said about the insights that ANT can bring to thinking about design.
Post-humanist approaches to thinking about agency challenge the assumption that human agency is independent of non-human agencies. The approach to understanding action and change that is forwardedwithin ANT is one that treats human and non-human actors as symmetrical (ieequally significant). Non-human actors not only have agency, but also act on us. Our intentions (among other things) are shaped by the agency of non-humans.
Tony Fry’s conception of ‘ontological design’ similarly recognises the agency of non-human (and, specifically, designed) things. He emphasises that designed things have an agency in excess of the agency we intend them to have. The unforseen ways in which the designed things that we bring into the world re-shape that world, need to be recognised as being at least as significant (probably more significant) than the foreseen and intended ways in which they re-shape the world.
Fry and Latour belong to slightly different intellectual traditions, but both are heirs to the critique of the Cartesian distinction between subject and object. This critique, which is central to Heidegger’s work, underpins the diverse conversations of continental philosophy during the second half of the 20th century.
Personally, I find these insights to be of enormous importance in relation to thinking about design.
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