Arte-fact Intelligence

電子東西。 Diànzǐ Dōngxī
The process of Artefact Intelligence(Ar.I.) Thing-Kin[ship] can be described as a kind of permaculture electronics, an ecosystem of components that form complex systems from which functionality emerges.

The concept of permaculture electronics refers to an approach that applies a no-dig, ecosystem-like mindset to electronic devices and PCB circuit boards: a no-drill policy that forces the components and copper tracks onto the same visible side of the equation. The term "organic" might sound strange when applied to the toxic materials involved in electronics, such as the way “a geology of media” by Jussi Parikka (2015) enmeshes media and minerals in a convincing way:

“Media technologies can be understood as a long story of experimenting with different materials—from glass plates to chemicals, from selenium to silicon, from coltan to rare earth minerals, from dilute sulfuric acid to shellac silk, different crystals in telegraphic receivers, and gutta-percha for insulation in earlier transatlantic wired communication”. (25)
The organic/ecosystem perspective
The idea that all the components and linkages of electrical circuits contribute to the overall state of the ecosystem has elements of ‘non-planned’ ‘decentralised workings’ and ‘improvisation’ which is related to the commonly used meanings of ‘organic’. The organic/ecosystem perspective places the materials and components of electronics as interdependent elements within a larger environment of function.

The overall performance relies on the variable functions of each component, such as capacitors, resistors, and integrated circuits, as well as the PCB board serving as a medium. The PCB board can be likened to soil, although it is a modified soil tailored for monocultural production. In a monoculture, the focus of electronics is primarily on intentional functionality, eliminating any unintended features, and non-homogeneous features during the construction process. Factory production methods aid the replicability of circuit boards - producing identical products and functions. While unexpected functionalities are not the natural state of electronics, deliberately working close to the margin of error allows for these surprises to emerge. It is comparable to a jazz band trained to play traditional jazz tunes note by note, with the challenge for the group to improvise and go beyond the score of the music. Ironically, jazz music itself was once a new form of expression, just as electricity and electronics emerged in an era without defined boundaries. However, as datafication and electronics advance, there is a growing tendency to eliminate the unexpected, aiming to create a highly predictable universe.

the monoculture field of electronics
The expansion of the computer world is the backdrop for exploring thinking as a ‘kinship’ with things (Thing-Kin) traversing human and material forms. Ideas of intelligence are increasingly narrowed by the ‘objective rationaility’ emerging as a result of datafication of the everyday (REF). If intelligence is something that is grown from a particular cultural soil, in a monoculture field the aim would be to produce near to optimal identical products rather than allow any kind of variation which may come from soil contaminants such as stones or badly distributed resources, nutrients or sunlight. In contrast to the monoculture of mainstream electronics and the production of artificial intelligence are the backstreet factories of New Taipei where a different form of intelligence is being created through artefacts and the introduction of variables, contaminants, influences and errors which the larger factories seek to eliminate.

‘Thing-kin’ is a way of describing the methods of thinking emerging through our entangled connections with material and technological ‘things’: the sociomaterial kinship between technology and humans as a knowledge culture from which thinking emerges. Kinship is a closeness of bond that identifies us in a state of ‘oneness’ with things: certain things that provide an opportunity of connection at an emotional, psychological and material level. Things we think ‘through’ and in companionship with. Thinking ‘through’ and thinking ‘with’ are both processes that are often invisible when the thinking is in full flow: we become unaware of the differences between ourselves and the things we are connecting with: such that it is difficult to see ‘who’ or ‘what’ is thinking. Kinship suggests the closeness of bond in which we become inseparable, no matter that the materials we are thinking through are conventionally perceived as non-living entities: they come alive and are part of the process.

Our own thinking processes are never individual but emerge from multiple sources of what Edwin Hutchins calls ‘distributed cognition’ whereby ‘a brain is known to be a huge distributed cognitive system [and] cognitive processes are believed to emerge from complex interactions among very large numbers of neurons’ (Hutchins, 2014, p. 37). Our kinship with things act as another, external, set of synapses, indistinguishable in function from the billions of internal brain cells we use.

creating predictable systems
Artificial intelligence AI is aimed and focused on creating predictable systems which function exactly as intended. The challenge is to alter this mindset to allow accidents, unpredictability and improvisation to occur again. A set of rules or guidelines have been devised which allow this working on various aspects of the electronics such as the production of the PCB board the soil from which the functions of components grow and emerge. This is a bit like a set of arbitrary rules, the kind of thing that Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier attempted with Dogma 95 (REF) : a set of rules and guidelines for producing a more realistic or authentic experience. Perhaps the aim here is to create a less artificial way of thinking developed as “artefact intelligence”, where the objects and things are from where the intelligence, if we can call it that, emerges. The set of guidelines for permaculture electronics might include:

no drilling

no Monoculture

no Replicability

no stable process

no programming chips

choose big over small

resist minimisation

Let the circuit survive by themselves

Work closely to the margin of error

Circuit boards should be hand drawn

components visible as possible

monocultural mythologies of production

Often to reinforce a particular attitude certain mythologies can be constructed to help focus the human operators towards a particular outcome they wish to achieve. Exploring the current ‘monocultural’ narratives of artificial intelligence in Taiwan we could summarise them as miniaturization of integrated circuits, large almost fully automated factories, and it is important that the circuits are untouched by human hands when supplying the most intelligent integrated silicone designs.

The aim of these factories is to avoid any type of hands-on intervention in the production process, the intelligence produced can be said to be extremely artificial in its sterile atmospheres and highly procedural operations. Artificial and organic are the obvious points of contrast with the two mythologies, monoculture and permaculture are other ways of looking at the differences between the mainstream electronics industry and the backstreet electronics factories of Banqiao, a district in New Taipei, Taiwan.
Artefact Intelligence
Martin Heidegger introduced the idea that our tools are inseparable from our thinking selves (1962), interpreted as ‘tool-being’ by Graham Harman (2002) and popularised in Wired.com by Brandon Keim: ‘The thing that does the thinking is bigger than your biological body[....] You’re so tightly coupled to the tools you use that they’re literally part of you as a thinking, behaving thing’ (Dotov Nie & Chemero, 2010, cited in Keim, 2010; see also Hasan & Sheeraz, 2020).

Scenes from the backstreet electronics factory in Banqiao, Taipei, where they are building the artefact machines can be described as cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approaches to electronics manufacturing without the strong boundaries of objective rationality encouraged by data and datification of the world. For example, "design of the circuit boards are etched in acid and inscribed with Mandarin symbols and word games which allegedly assist in the fortune telling functions" (Taoist spells ref needed). Prediction, which is the Hallmark and goal of AI circuit production, is mutated into divination and fortune telling: less scientific definitions of prediction than those contained within the sterile scientific environments the large factories aim to achieve.

no replicability in research - no products- chàbuduō
"Techno-animist technicians work on the random number generators needed for each machine" (Factory worker# 1). Workers in these factories bring with them non-scientific belief systems and work practices which cannot be replicated. The basis of scientific discovery is producing experiments that can be replicated by other scientists to either prove or disprove the theories the experiments are generating. With replication and the elimination of variables comes a very different approach which also allows prediction to be scientifically calculated objectively through artificial intelligence circuits. There are many worldviews which do not value so highly the ability to replicate experiments. There is little or no concept of mass production here, as every copper board is hand painted with acid resist, no drilling causes time consuming soldering of components directly onto the copper tracks of the board. Working closely to the margin of error allows mutations to occur which can be beneficial to the outcome. Circuits start to act differently and components interact with each other in a very dynamic way.
Scenes from 'Electronic brain' the factory that make the circuit boards in Taiwan for the electronic fortune telling machines. In a backstreet in Banqiao a small sweat shop operates employing uncaring labour to design machines they will never want to buy.

The workers have an attitude to making, incorporating a strong sense of '差不多' (chàbuduō) approach, popularised by the Taiwan/Chinese philosophy of Hu Shih. '差不多' (chàbuduō) or ‘it’ll do’ means using the minimal of effort in each stage of production. This translates as a positioning towards error, rather than professionalism - "let stuff fall to bits, we might learn something" says one of the workers. "Don’t follow a straight line efficiency when you can make badly and improvise on the repair job" says another. There is a vague rule that circuit boards should be hand drawn and the components should be soldered on the visible track side, rather than put through holes.

This no-drill approach resists a tidy circuit board, made to look like clean crops growing on a nicely flat field easy to harvest. Show the mess with the pride of a barely functioning jalopy, a patched up frankenstein technology to rival the clean lines of AI Rationality. Be illogical in construction, make mistakes and repair the design in a unique way each time -the outcome is very different.
Reproducibility
Working closely to the margin of error allows mutations to occur which can be beneficial to the outcome. Circuits start to act differently and components interact with each other in a very dynamic way. They say that working very close to the margin of error generates unexpected results, gifts from the gods which translate as innovations and creativity. The circuits work the same way, barely able to produce what seem to be random numbers.... "I think we made better PCB's when we were kids like 9 or ten years old.I still remember marking out the tracks with a marker pen then soaking them in ferric chloride.Or using the old veroboard", says one of the workers in the factory (Factory worker #2). The childlike design seems an integral part of the process to generate errors and unpredictabilities.

While our kinship with technology engenders emotional connections, it also isolates us as individual data points in a quantifiable grid. This "datification" process, underscores the impact of our human-computer kinship. Additionally, our deepening connections with computational devices have allowed algorithmic thinking to dominate our perception of Computational Thinking. This encroachment presents challenges to our understanding of cognition, as algorithmic forces increasingly shape our decision-making processes in various contexts. Through examining our kinship with objects and their influence on our thinking processes, we uncover the inseparability between humans and technology. Our connection with objects represents a synapse in the distributed cognitive system, contributing to our advanced computational thinking. By exploring Thing-Kin and its implications, we gain valuable insights into the evolving nature of our relationship with technology and its impact on cognition.

Artefacts are Arte-Facts
suggesting a different form of knowledge than the calculative rationality of data used in artificial intelligence”: this is a whole different idea of thinking which incorporates the unknown functions of ‘things’ located in an electronic ecosystem.

At the factory, our bond with technology is reminiscent of the connections we share with living beings, leading us to recognize our more-than-individual nature of consciousness. Despite conventional perceptions of inanimate objects, our kinship with electronics makes them come alive, intertwining with our thought processes. Just as our brains function as a distributed cognitive system, the connection with objects serves as another synapse, indistinguishable from the billions of neurons in our brain (Factory worker #4).

They say that working very close to the margin of error generates unexpected results, gifts from the gods which translate as innovations and creativity. The circuits work the same way, barely able to produce what seem to be random numbers.... permaculture comes to mind as in the benefits of whole food rather than highly refined foods in the same way electronics when it is not highly refined it's less narrow in its function allowing a wider aspect of the materials to engage with what we conceive as function.

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