This loss of trust in humanoid media is accompanied by a new silence
in the dialogue between master and servant. The language that is directed
at the servant becomes terse. The previously still cultivated courtly official style gives way to short commands. The example of these commands
reveals what has becomes apparent: communication has become machine
language. William Thackeray even brags about this in 1850: “We never
speak a word to the servant who waits on us for twenty years.” After its
high point in the eighteenth century, communications between lords and
servants seem to have come to a standstill. “In the Victorian household,
there is an impression of increased silence.” What causes this silence?
Something bisects the old human-human interface. The transition from
listening to dumb waiter hints at the cause: the nineteenth century is a
time in which the most varied services are transferred to technical media,
which in their telematic, indirect, oblique communicative abilities
replace the personal conversation with a depersonalized understanding.
In this gradual but nonetheless comprehensive process of transferal may
lie a reason why the corporation AskJeeves ultimately decided to abandon the imagery of the servant.
But why are these functional characteristics of various facets of
domestic service relevant? Within those facets of the servant that elevate
him or her to be the center of information gathering and dissemination is
hidden a comparison with the service portfolio of a search engine.
Thereby one may demonstrate how thoroughly the knowledge of search
engines as well as domestics can be assessed. On the other hand, the
implicit juxtaposition of servant and search engine susses out Jeeves,
forcing one to pursue the question of the plausibility of the metaphor.
The privileged knowledge of domestics feeds not only off their activity
as messengers but also off their roles as ...
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Yamil Orlando