Mechanisation in the mechanisation of mental labour

Mechanisation in the mechanisation of mental labour

1. Forms of technology

   • Industrial - Substitutes for human physical labour
   • Productive - Subtitutes for human mental labour

2. Definition

   • Transfer of work from human to machine (over time)
     • Example
       • Doing numeric calculations in your head
       • Use an automatic machine to add up prices

3. Machinery which has the cost of slave labour will displace human labour

4. "We are now immersed in a new technological revolution concerned with the mechanisation of intellectual processes" (Minsky, 1967, p2)

   • Concerned with intellectual rather than the physical labour

5. "The ultimate economic reason for software development is the mechanization of mental labor and intellectual work." (Nake, 1998)

6. Idea of mechanization of human labour is very plausible and examples can be found but it is still not developed as a theme.

   • You can’t see it immediately = difficulties in understanding
     • Difficult to perceive, that’s why there is limited references.
       • "congealing of labour in the product"

7. Difficulties posed by current computational technology

   • Black box of technology
   • Mechanisation of mental labour
     • Replacement of human labour for machine process
   • Late 20th century revolution in the mechanisation of mental labour

8. Strategy considerations

   • Costs of mental labour and processes delegated to technology are predominantly, determined by the costs of the direct human labour required.
     • Example
       • Cost of lecture
         • Powerpoint software
         • Intellectual work (Main cost)
         • Computer
     • Database creation
       • Mental labour of creating the records in the database exceeds the cost of the physical database
       • As soon as we reach a number beyond the easy grasp of a human, it is cheaper to do it by machine.
   • Cost of mental labour may or not be expressed as a wage and assoicated employment costs
   • Machine may cost less over time