Mixed systems and interplay. Norbert Wiener meets Walter Benjamin

The article explores Wiener and Benjamin's views about the interaction between human beings and machines, highlighting some similarities. Despite their different areas of interest, they both recognize two kinds of technology, according to the sort of interaction each entertains with humans beings: an older one based on mastery and a second one based on interplay. The latter may eventually lead to «systems of a mixed nature, involving both human and mechanical parts», a new collective «which has its organs in the new technology». The emphasis the two authors share on interaction supports a view of automation that does not delegate human concerns to machines, but encourages the use of the new extended field of action to face these concerns in a new playful fashion together with the apparatus. In a society where machines are more and more able to pursue their own aims, human beings must therefore become even more responsible in setting and preserving the specifically human aims.