Manuel DeLanda (1991) situates the origins of the man-machine interface within a military context:

It is at the level of the interface that many of the political questions regarding Artificial Intelligence are posed. For instance, one and the same program may be used to take human beings out of the decision-making loop, or on the contrary, [be] interfaced with them so as to create a synergistic whole. It is the design of the interface which will decide whether the machinic phylum will cross between man and machines, whether humans and computers will enter into a symbiotic relationship, or whether humans will be replaced by machines. Although the centralizing tendencies of the military seem to point to a future when computers will replace humans, the question is by no means settled. (176)

DeLanda writes that research into interactivity between people and computers began with the military s desire to visualize data held in computers, and that interactivity went much further than it intended, giving people total control over their machines. Although scientists such as Doug Engelbert, Alan Kay, J. C. R Licklider, and Murray Turoff managed to gain control of the evolution of computers from the military, developing a vision of interactivity as a partnership between people and machines acted out on the computer screen, they were unable to introduce them into everyday life. It was hackers like Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs who eventually managed to translate these ideas into a machine that could compete in the marketplace against large...