"A black box contains that which no longer needs to be reconsidered, those things whose contents have become a matter of indifference. The more elements one can place in black boxes - modes of thoughts, habits, forces, and objects - the broader the constructions one can raise. Of course, black boxes never remain fully closed properly fastened... but macro-actors can do as if they were closed and dark"
- M. Callon & B. Latour, Unscrewing the big Leviathan
WHAT IS THE BLACK BOX?
TECHNOLOGY is this monolithic word that encompasses everything from pencils to medicine, and from toaster ovens to artificial intelligence. So, what do I mean when I say technology? And what's all this talk about a Black Box? The technology that I'm talking about is modern technology, the everyday stuff that we use - computers, smart phones, software, the things we have invited into our home to make our lives easier. I will speak about artificial intelligence and algorithms, but I'll let you know when I do.
The black box metaphor started way back in the days of cybernetics and refers to “a system we can only observe the inputs and outputs, but not the internal workings” (Card).
Another way to think about this is technology having a background and a foreground. The foreground is what you interact with. The app you click on, the screen that you see, that sort of thing. The background is all the stuff that's working behind the scenes to make that app work, or that screen to appear, or your computer to work. It's all the sorcery and wizardry that most people don't understand (or care to), that makes all the bleeps and bloops, and all the lights happen and the technology that you're using for work. The Black Box, is the background.
When I talk about it, If necessary, I will talk about it in those terms: the foreground (the stuff you interact with), and the background (the stuff you don't see that makes it work, everything inside the box) or the black box.
This looks at the black box through a performative lens. What does that mean? Richard Schechner sums it up best in his book Performance Studies: An Introduction:
"(DL) Austin notes, "To say something is to do something." In uttering certain sentences people perform acts. Promises, bets, curses, contracts, and judgments do not describe or represent actions: they are actions. Performatives are an integral part of "real life." As many have found out too late, even if the heart says "no," once the tongue says "yes" the performative binds."
The same is true with technology; but how does what we say with our technology, what we program our technology to say and do, and what our technology tells others about us, influence and impact our world? It is one thing to think about these things in the foreground of technology, who we text, what we Tweet, etc. but what about the background? How does the information we input into the technological black box impact these actions? How does “to say something is to do something” impact us if we can’t see who or what is uttering the words that influence our actions?