Engineering and the Posthuman

I'm co-writing a piece with Stuart Murray that touches at the end on posthumanism and engineering design. Writing across disciplines is always a challenge - so bound is each by its conventions and expectations - but there is nothing quite like it for really proving a collaboration! This is some way out of my comfort zone - you may recall I have some unfinished business with Rosi Braidotti's The Posthuman from 16 (!) months ago - so I thought the blog would make a good place to work through some my thoughts.

Caveat Lector
I say this often, but the warning still holds: I'm an engineer trying to describe areas way beyond my competence. What you're getting are my raw, crudely thought out reflections on encountering new material: not the carefully constructed argument of an expert. Feel to free to put me right.

Posthuman vs Transhuman

A complexity in dealing with the "posthuman" is the sheer range of ways that the term is used. One  of my main lessons from reading Braidotti is that "posthumanism" is not about being post-human or the next stage in evolution or the perfecting of the species, or moving beyond human (that being the domain of transhumanism, and there I think the relationship of such engineeres bodies to Engineering is quite clear). Rather, it us about moving beyond Humanist philosophy. That being the case, does it have any relevance to engineers?

A Note on Terminology
Given the variety of meanings for "posthuman", and the fact that while we might talk about "posthuman engineering" and "transhuman engineering", they don't really compare with "human engineering", I'm going to come up with a clunky solution and use the phrase "humanist", "posthumanist" and "transhumanist" when describing styles of engineering. You will also notice a lot of use of quotation marks. Often inconsistently. That's how much I'm struggling with the terminology here.

Beyond Human

One of the major tenets of posthumanism  seems to be the breaking down of barriers between human, animal and machine. This can be captured in the whole question of "Why should bodies end at the skin?". By this token "human" isn't an ideal to be refined and perfected (as it is in Transhumanism, I guess?), but a boundary to be questioned. Note also assumptions about who is allowed to be "fully human", whether humans are rational, 

This Deluezian style of inquiry is one I have written about before, and the notion of system boundaries as something socially negotiated in any engineering project rings true. And there are times when the skin is a useful system boundary, and times when it is not. The question that is interesting is: what happens when the system boundaries are negotiated without engaging users in that discussion? 

This is where we get into criticisms of "fixing" people. Or coming up with complex solutions to problems where simple solutions already exist. Or failing to consider the broader sociotechnical issues - who maintains the device when it goes wrong? What happens if it becomes obsolete? But recognising that a person should be considered as part of an "assemblage" (to use the Deleuzian phrase) and considering the social environment around them is hardly a radical new approach to design or Deleuzian experimentation. And I doubt it would qualify as being a "posthuman" position.

Does the Posthuman have any value in the discussion of assistive technology and prosthetics? Or does it run on a parallel track to engineering, with the two never actually intersecting? The difference between "humanist engineering" and "transhumanist engineering" seems reasonably clear: the former sees the human as a given; a constraint to be designed around, outside the scope of design; the latter sees the human as part of what is being designed, with form and structure, function and material all up for debate and redesign. What would the difference between "humanist engineering" and "posthumanist engineering" look like?

Is it an ethical position? Consideration of robot and animal rights, for example? Shifting away from viewing humans as the rightful rulers of the world who can do with it as they will to seeing us as only one part of the world, with corresponding moral obligations? Is it something else? And wouldn't that apply to almost everything, not just to medical devices? Of course, if one adopts the Social Model of Disability, then questions of access pervade every engineering decision. Who gets to use this device, and who is excluded? This brings us back to the idea of "selective enabling", and questions of what obligations the engineer has to society. But would this make inclusive design an example of "posthumanist engineering"?  That doesn't feel quite right.

Of course, one of the interesting properties of labels is that as a concept becomes more commonplace, it becomes absorbed into mainstream terminology. With time aspects of "posthumanist engineering" could just merge into the accepted definition of engineering. The notion that designers need to avoid toxic materials, or think about how products will be disposed of, or consider the security of their devices move from being unusual ideas to just part of what it is to design.

Can Engineering be Humanist?

It only makes sense to talk of "posthumanist engineering" if engineering can also be "humanist". Still, I'm not entirely sure I would recognise a "posthumanist" or "humanist" design if I saw them. Or if designs can be "humanist" or "posthumanist" for that matter. We rub up against the dual nature of technical artefacts: it is very hard - maybe impossible - to reverse engineer the intentional nature of a product from its physical nature. Since humanism and posthumanism describe philosophies, they would manifest as different approaches to design decision-making (applying different values, even if the underlying process didn't change). Different approaches to design can converge on very similar - or even identical - outcomes. The can diverge wildly, as well, and changes of intent will change the "best" design for a given circumstance. It might be the case that actually, posthumanist designs end up being very different from humanist designs. It's just that it might not. Would the design process even be different? Or just the values underpinning choices? How would you know if your design process took a posthuman approach? This, by the by, probably applies to all engineering done across disciplinary boundaries. How would you know from a product whether it had been engineered ethically? Or critically? Or with the Social, rather than medical model of Disability in mind?  

An interesting comparison (well, I think it's interesting) is whether the same difficulty would apply to recognising  "transhumanist" design. There is a difference in intent (which would be difficult to confirm from the end product), but would there also be a difference in the scope and material of designs? Would "transhumanist" engineering be visible in terms of the incorporation of the human body as part of the material being designed? But then, would we class tissue engineering or the reconfiguration of muscles in amputees to improve the reading of EMGs for prosthetics as "transhumanist"? Probably not - again, the difference lies in intent.

That said, the phrase "Humanist Engineer" is not one that I have originated. You can find several references to it: a Twitter account, an interview with Lewis Cerne of New Relic, a talk to the Royal Academy of Engineering from Janusz Kozinski of the New Model in Technology and Engineering. The thing that these have in common is a need for engineers to be "more human", take a broader view, and have a focus on the needs of humans, rather than just on developing technology.  Of course, here the term "humanist" is probably used in the sense of a non-religious person who seeks to "live a good life"  and " work together to improve the quality of life for all and make it more equitable" (see Humanists UK), which I'm not sure is quite the same thing that posthumanism critiques.

I mean, I think that telling an engineer working on prosthetics that "your users are no less human because they have had an amputation!" would probably elicit a puzzled look and the response "Why would I think they were any less human?". Though that in turn might leader to a debate about why they are designing prostheses - which is probably better taken by those who use them than by me. I guess, though, we run back to the matter of intent: if you're designing prosthetic hands (say) because anyone who doesn't have two hands is broken and needs to be restored to normality, then that's a different case from designing them because amputees find them a useful tool for picking things up.

Of course, perhaps the "posthuman" becomes more interesting in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, where blurring the boundary between human and artefact becomes more significant. Are robots slaves, or do they have rights? And if robots have rights, then do other machines? Do we have obligations to the machines that we create? And if so, where is the line drawn? Do we have a moral obligation not to injure the pavement by walking on it? I don't think anyone would make that case. Would we only have such obligations to "strong" AI? 

The short answer is, I'm just not sure. Which is a slightly unsatisfying point at which to end this blog post, but greater minds than mine are grappling with these issues.  Perhaps a better question is: are these questions relevant to engineers while they are doing engineering?  As distinct from being relevant to engineers because they are relevant to everyone?

In Summary

So, after that long and rambling thought-piece: what (if anything) can we conclude? 

First and foremost that the effects of any philosophical intervention would have to be sought in the process, rather than the product of engineering. 

Following from this, then we might ask: what would be different about this process?  The steps involved might even be the same. It would be in the values and attitudes brought to design decisions. 

And what would be different about those values? Here the amorphous nature of the posthuman causes the detail to become blurry. Would it be more respectful of life as a whole? More reflexive, identifying and challenging biases? More open to exploring broader horizons? More focused on the needs of users rather than theoretical ideals? All of these have potential in helping to head off Colingridge's dilemma, and a countering the problem of microscopic vision - but none of these would be unique to the Posthuman.  

But maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe the value of engineers engaging with the Posthuman is that it provides an avenue for raising these issues, rather than a magic bullet to solve them.

And that feels like a positive conclusion to me, so I think I will stop there.