Human and Machine Cultures of Reading: A Cognitive-Assemblage Approach

The concept “cultures of reading” should be expanded to include machines that read. Machine reading is exemplified by the computer system called Never-Ending Language Learning (NELL). Because NELL lacks real-world experience, its semantic comprehension is limited to forming categories of words. This process illustrates a major difference between human and machine reading: whereas human reading involves causal reasoning, machine reading relies more on correlations. Human-machine hybrid reading, for example the kind done with an e-book, can be understood as a cognitive assemblage through which information, interpretations, and meanings circulate. The introduction of mechanical cognition into printing can be seen in the Paige Compositor, from 1878. The transition from electromechanical cognition to more flexible digital and electronic computational media marks the movement from print, understood as a technology involving the arrangement of type pieces to impress ink on paper, to postprint, in which inked products originate as computer files. This change, which signals an ontological rupture in writing and reading practices, is addressed through a cognitive-assemblage approach emphasizing the distribution of cognition among technical and human actors.