Man vs.

Machine and The

Information Age
DR. JENINA V. TOLENTINO
LECTURER
The Latest Chapter is Just Starting

Our history and our literature show us that

for most of human history machines were
seen as tools to help people do more than
they were capable on their own. From simple
tools to the inventions of the Iron Age and
Bronze Age, technology augmented human
capability for survival, competitive advantage
and convenience.

The ancient Greek legend of Icarus and

Daedalus told the story of augmenting
humans with wings so they could fly like
birds. For thousands of years’ life and art
mirrored each other in a story of man and
machine, working together for the betterment
of humanity.
Industrial Age

Starting in the late 1700s, as the Industrial

Revolution began to take hold, we saw a change to
this paradigm. Now machines were a threat to the
economic security of the newly formed working
class. Machines were no longer simply helping
people achieve more but also were now
displacing a great many workers. This new
relationship between people and technology
created economic hardship for the working class.

Perhaps the most famous real life battle between

man and machine was the Luddite Rebellion of
1811-1813. While the movement was supposedly
inspired by Englishman Ned Ludd’s smashing of
textile stocking frames in 1779 it did take on a life
of its own. The Luddites were skilled craftsmen;
people had spent a lifetime learning their craft. It
was the economic and career model of the day
where master craftsmen taught and passed on
their skills and knowledge to the next generation
through apprenticeships.
The rebellion was led by textile workers in
Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire,
England. The craftsmen had a number of concerns,
many of which may sound familiar even today
from decreasing wages to the inferior quality of
the goods being produced by machines.

The fears were real and justified- in fact the

croppers, who were skilled at finish wool, were
nearly all replaced by machines within 10 year of
the rebellion.

Protests and clashes between workers, capitalists

and the government occurred sporadically through
the early 1800s in England across industries. It is
no accident that perhaps the most famous man vs
machine story was developed during this time-
The Legend of John Henry.
20th Century

Third Industrial Revolution,

marked by computers and electronics
further automating the means of
production. Now computers could
operate the machines and do the jobs
of some people. Computers controlled
robots on the assembly line doing
everything from precision welding to
assembling products. Of course,
computers also enabled humans to do
work that could not have been done
before, spawning new jobs from space
exploration to risk management.
In last few years we’ve seen increasing intellectual battles between man and machine, with the
machines coming out the winners. The computers’ victories famously come in the games of Jeopardy,
Chess, Go, and others as computers like IBM’s Watson and Googles DeepMind defeat human world
champions in these games. These victories, however, come largely from brute force computations on
computers taking up more space than a human brain.
Second Stage of Industrial
Revolution
Third Stage of Industrial
Revolution
Stages of Industrial
Revolution
The Information Age

The technology has the power to transform society. The most famous example of this
is German craftsman Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in the 15 th
century. Today the internet and associated information technologies are said to be
behind an information revolution that is transforming the way people live and work.

Unlike the printing press or the steam engine, no single person invented the
internet. Instead it was the culmination of advances in computer technology, reductions
in the cost of manufacturing personal computers and the resulting increase in their
popularity, and the evolution of networking technology.
The internet is essentially a vast network of computers. Importantly, it is a decentralized
network; it does not depend on a central mainframe computer as networks did in the 1950s
and 1960s. the idea for a vast, decentralized computer network originated with the Cold
war and the US Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). ARPA
scientist and engineers wanted to create a computer network in which any computer could
exchange information with any other computer.
Computers were first linked to form ARPANET, as this early network was called, in
1969. Throughout the 19700s and 1980s, as computers became more common,
academic researchers and engineers began linking their computers to ARPANET. As the
network grew- branching haphazardly and quite beyond the control of its original
creators- it came to be known as the “internet.”

Many people associate the internet with e-mail. Email is only one of the many ways
that information can be shared over the internet, but email as fast, easy, and free way to
communicate with colleagues.
In order to share computer files
across the internet, the
computers on the network need
to share a common protocol, or
standard, for how the data will
be transported electronically.
The most famous such protocol-
and the one that propelled the
internet to nationwide
popularity- is HTMT. HTML was
invented by Tim Berners- Lee, a
British programmer who
developed the protocol as a
convenient way of sharing
documents over the internet. In
1991, HTML became the basis
for the World Wide Web.
Information and
Technology Era