Bruno Latour, Aramis, or the Love of Technology, PDF - Dss-edit.com

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olts popped out like rockets and landed 15 meters away. When the committeemembers come by, we were terrified they'd be hit." [no. 4]M. Cohen, Matra's project head at the time, speaking in his spacious,lorge-windowed office in Besanr;on:"It's also a question of the times, you know. I have trouble imogining anindustrialist today who'd say, 'We don't have a medium-distance ultrasoundlink-up? Okay, let's go for it-we'll invent one. There's no motor on the market2Never mind, we'll develop one.' And it was all like that. Today, everybodysticks to his own job. People don't toke so many risks."You have to realize that in six months we did the entire feasibility model.It wasn't a prototype; in fact, it was a full-scale model." [no. 45]M. Berger, former RATP engineer who was acquainted with the project atthe time, responding to questions:"So, Aramis at Oriy-what is it, exactly?""It's a 1 ,200-meter track with a shunting station, with three little yellowcars-user-friendly computers-running around it in dry weather [see Photos3-5]."Each little car is equipped with on arm that lets it push on the left or rightgUide-rail, at branching points, so it can turn.""Switching isn 't done on the ground, then?""No, it's done on board . The big challenge with Aramis is that the cars areautonomous; they don't touch each other, yet they work together as if they werepart of a train. They have nonmaterial couplings-nothing but calculations. Soyou can imagine how autonomous they are."Every car has to know who it is. It has to receive instructions aboutspeed-'Here you can speed up; here you have to slow down.' It has tomonitor itself constantly, but it also has to know what cor it's follOWing, so ithas to be able to see, or at least feel, what's in front of it, the way a bot does.It olso has to know what's coming along behind."To see at a distance, we chose a long-distance ultrcsound sensor; for shortdistances, a rotating laser bundle reflecting onto two catadiopters. If the car infront is too close, according to the ultrasound sensor, and the cor behind getsthe message 'Form a train,' it has to approach the lead car without bumpinginto it."They're in constant dialogue, since the ultrasound sensor in front and theul1rasound responder in the rear are both active."Then, when they've joined up in a train, the car controls itself by means of__-,-,:S,--,- AR AMI S FEASIBLE2
the optical sensor so it will maintain a constant speed without jerky movementsthat would shake up the passengers. When it opproaches the station it hasbeen ossigned to, ot the precise moment 01 coupling it has to put its arm outto the right or the left-powl-while uncoupling from its colleagues ot the sometime [he makes the gesture by turning in his chair]. The cars behind have toclose ronks [he rolls his chair closer to his desk). If the first car in the train is theone that turns, the next one becomes first in line and gets its orders. The centralcomputer keeps track 01 the flow in terms of passenger demand."So you see, it's not that eosy. Each car has to calculate its own speed andposition; it has to know where it's going; it has to be able to be leader orfollower; it has to know when to stop at a station, open its doors, and keeptrack of passenger destinations. And take off again. If it's on its own, it can gofull speed ahead. As soon as it sees a car in front, it has to be ready to meetand link up. All this, of course, at 25 kilometers per hour, even in rain or snow,all doy, 011 night, thousands of times, without breoking down."'And besides, what you are describing involves only three cars. A realsystem would need hundreds of brains like this. ""Yes, and what's more, the whole system has to be failsafe.""[ find your characters one-dimensional. They seem flat. They're justideas, words on paper. They need to be animated; you have to makethem move, give them depth and consistency. More than anything, theyhave to be autonomous; that's the whole secret. And instead they're sorigid! They'd pass for puppets. Look at that one: he has no personality,he doesn't know where he is, or what time it is, or where he's supposedto go, or whom he's supposed to meet. You have to tell him everything:'Go forward, go back, come closer, turn right, turn left, open the door,go ahead, watch out. ' Your characters are just sacks of potatoes. Givethem a little breathing space, a little autonomy. Make them cars withminds of their own. You don't know a thing about art: it's not enoughjust to treat characters as vehicles for your projects. It's not worth it,being the best in the world in robotics, automation, mechanics, computerscience, if you don't take the trouble to breathe some life intoyour anemic paper figures. Good literature isn't made with noble sentiments,Gentlemen, and good transportation isn't made with ideas.either. It has to have a life of its own: that's your top priority. ".. But what if they start moving around on their own, taking theirlives in their own hands? Maybe they'll get ahead of us! "________ _ ____________SA:..:.: R_'__ AMIS'---'- F-=E-'-AS'_CI.::cB_"_L =_l =-2 _---1_
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ARAMISTHE LOVE OF ECHNOLOGY
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Copyright © 1996 by the President
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TO SIMON SCHAFFER 7/
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By publishing this hook, I would li
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exemplary meditation on the difficu
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PROLOGUE: WHO KILLED ARAMIS?The fir
Page 15 and 16: PROLOGUE•cember 1987. A promising
Page 17 and 18: [DOCUMENT: EXCERPTS FROM AN ARTICLE
Page 19 and 20: "You see," he went on during one of
Page 21 and 22: "But during that period I found out
Page 23 and 24: -"There's one small problem," I sai
Page 25 and 26: 1973: Test site at Orly; three-vehi
Page 27 and 28: 1985: Scale model of two-car Aramis
Page 29 and 30: in a mass transit network, with no
Page 31 and 32: come true. Since every study has to
Page 33 and 34: load fa ctor, Professor? Your isola
Page 35 and 36: if by magic. An electronic calculat
Page 37 and 38: to be invented, if we are to track
Page 39 and 40: ---) TransporterTime IS . ; To Char
Page 41 and 42: assembly line? You said "transfer"?
Page 43 and 44: primly, without acknowledging my cl
Page 45 and 46: defensive about playing "amusing me
Page 47 and 48: curves: DATAR, the RATP, Paris, bef
Page 49 and 50: fellow. It's like the Galileo affai
Page 51 and 52: Time To-1 2 3 4 5CJIII __ _ Time T1
Page 53 and 54: fic off the roads , it improve s tr
Page 55 and 56: ter-who speaks in the name of the g
Page 57 and 58: are solemnly and eternally committe
Page 59 and 60: me, Aramis isn't a PRT Iype of tran
Page 61 and 62: Aeroport de Paris said. IF you map
Page 63 and 64: IS ARAMIS FEASIBLE?"Now we can go o
Page 65: workshop, a control post, a recepti
Page 69 and 70: evolutionary system of transportati
Page 71 and 72: "For my part, " the motor declares,
Page 73 and 74: -otherwise, it instructs the car to
Page 75 and 76: not only determined the laws accord
Page 77 and 78: [INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M. Lamoureux, r
Page 79 and 80: they have to change the motor, mult
Page 81 and 82: there would be a lot of new functio
Page 83 and 84: "The idea was that it was seductive
Page 85 and 86: know who, among the engineers, exec
Page 87 and 88: of admiring the architecture, the s
Page 89 and 90: control room, by Ferbeck (who is al
Page 91 and 92: has the massive dimensions it takes
Page 93 and 94: come back to print. The whole passa
Page 95 and 96: "Do you comprehend the crime, the u
Page 97 and 98: [INTERVIEW EXCERPTS)At Matra headqu
Page 99: [INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M, Parlat, proi
Page 102 and 103: Stationl00o
Page 104 and 105: destinations: that's the idea that
Page 106 and 107: the network, all the problems of au
Page 108 and 109: [INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M. Etienne, hea
Page 110 and 111: ody can commit himself; it's imposs
Page 112 and 113: configuration on the board. Besides
Page 114 and 115: to the real transportation system,
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As a young engineer, I refused to c
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS)In M. Hector's
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M. Parlat is sp
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did his field work in the Amazon ra
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What counts, in a technological pro
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"That's an interesting theory all r
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"With VAL, we moved gradually from
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hard; you'd need to build it into t
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also VAL; Ficheur, the contracting
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completely ignores economic conditi
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INTERPHASE :THRE E YEARS OF GRAC E"
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construction of the Center for Tech
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]At the Ministry
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every year?* You could pay for Aram
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A "trashable explanation" ! The exa
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II est passe par iciII repassera pa
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uilding reliable, predictable, conv
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public funds vampire-fashion and th
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"Number 7 is incompatible with numb
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"Yes, we 've made a lot of progress
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Orly-Val], and then Montpellier. We
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Norbert's sociology, he respected m
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"In fact, I should have spent a cou
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The rationality of technologies wri
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Why not go see Ronald Reagan, or th
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"I called several meetings to verif
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the World's Fair; then they said it
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attaching to me dozens of poor devi
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3. In 1973, in a beet field near th
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7 The control room for VAL in Lille
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1 I. Aramis really does exist now;
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] 5. [n March 1987, seven months be
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19. Since no engineer could prove m
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we are often the first to see, in a
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"The RATP said to itself, 'I'm behi
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agree. "They're aiming at VA L in s
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"He agrees with me," I remarked mod
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viewpoints, goals, and desires, so
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If the actors in a project define n
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With a technological project, inter
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gers impatient to show up at Bercy
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allies. Thus, not only is the actor
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from one extreme to another. If you
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isn't the only one who doesn't know
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"Aramis has a lot of advantages bec
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hour. The human being in these scen
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the subway, by virtue of its access
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even includes direct quotes! A prot
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Regie Autonome des TransportsParisi
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etween us had evaporated with Norbe
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ITY OF THE INDIVIDUALS AND COMPANIE
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opinion of the capitalists had "per
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An accusation that's so watered dow
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epistemological; it talks and talks
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conception, which exists in fact on
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put it. If Aramis existed, you woul
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"So we had to increase the absolute
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[SUMMARY OF A GROUP INTERVIEW]The s
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engineering, all the ingenuity, all
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"We've found the hidden staircase,"
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dominated by, people. But there is
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-Vehicle110,000f-PCC spervisio Stat
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]-M. Freque, pro
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problem. This task, for the project
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"What I think is that the Matra eng
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"As for the automation, I agree wit
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inappropriate, as if it were clear
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PIaorm 1X" StationI / Plaorm 2Subst
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"Level III: the fixed equipment, ea
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But since you're not human, I'd be
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--wheels, supply information about
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little I was becoming the Aramis mo
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the cars located in the sector, as
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So it givesa recalibration that'sre
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OrdinateViewpoint of mobile unit/I-
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Phonic wheelCoded equidistant cross
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"Here deceleration has to be factor
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[DOCUMENT]code 5800 .2ORI 10 0 0 00
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Norbert woke up terrified.The next
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This is the case for the Matra comp
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This figure, in the context of the
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short-term vision. 'As long as ther
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1. What M. Brun needs; what hechoos
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ecause if someone says, 'After fift
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Well then, that's reassuring. I sta
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thing, give or take a nuance or two
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that's too bad Obviously, to go fro
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They sound awfully sure of themselv
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"Either they didn't put enough ener
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Phase 1: Concept development5phose
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VAL. You'll see, we're going to fin
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on on ongoing basis how things are
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7. Aramis has been perfected as a m
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of a network, to the extent that th
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"Are they interested in elected off
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"But then why not say it was resear
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when we talked about it. The electe
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"No, no, not enough love! Love and
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ahout each other in strict confiden
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"Yet in spite of its fragility, its
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to be a line. What more could I ask
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things. That's not what brought my
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"Obligation to use all appropriate
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" Prometheus. ""Prometheus! The 'sm
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GLOSSARYA-320 An airplane built by
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BertinBienvenueBus DivisionCabinent
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tems to be controlled in the car (d
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E:'2the ministry's technical dossie
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Porno 2000PrometheusPRTQuinRofoleRa
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sniffer planeSOFRESSOFRETUSouth lin
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BIUND /ATOUI , 01"""of SOOoIogy, £
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