Key Question: Would it be possible to program a computer to interpret the underlying significance of expressions or in other words to understand contextual conversations?
The interaction between humans and machines is a complicated one which is explored through both texts. The first one by Lucy A. Suchman explores the subject from a social science perspective while the second by Mark Weiser does it from a technological one. Much harder to read and to understand, the former digs deep into the abstract concepts of human-computer interaction and human language and uses very few examples compared to the latter which is much more pragmatic in explaining how the interaction with future technology should be programmed to allow the “ready-to-hand”, the disappearance of the silicon-based information technology, or rather the naturalization of computers.
One of the main themes emanating from those two distinct approaches would be adaptability. Humans have the particularity that they adapt their course of action or understanding of a situation to the context that they are in through situational actions. A plan of any sort or a conversation can never be completely literal in the sense that adaptation is needed to achieve what is intended because of unspecified events along the way. Flexibility is thus needed.
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