Computer Language
According to digital media, communications, and rhetoric scholar Dr. Kevin Brock, computers utilize low-level language. Low-level computer language being the some of the most, if not exactly, the language read by a computers processor. They are direct instructions that are the most readable to a computer, but the least readable to humans.
However, even though this part of computer language is meant to be read by humans it has the potential to pertain human biases. Because, after all it is developed by humans. Regardless of how objective we think or want these machines to be– they can only be as objective as the code they process.
Computers Aren’t Always Objective
In 2023, computer scientist and activist, Dr. Joy Buolamwini, published the memoir: Unmasking AI: My Mission To Protect What Is Human In A World Of Machines. In it Buolamwini recounts a time in which she is doing a project at MIT. She decides to implement facial recognition technology into the device she’s developing. But this tech doesn’t recognize her face. She then notices a white full face mask she had nearby and puts it on. That’s when he face is recognized.
Due to technologies ability to inherit human biases scholars, like Dr. Brock, mention how rhetoric should not only be studied by literary scholars but by coders as well. To which I agree.
A high-level language is what Brock defines as human readable languages– like English, French, Arabic or Mandarin. Many who study writing in these high-level languages are required to study rhetoric. So why shouldn’t those who are studying how to write low-level languages not required to?
If it’s written to be read, it’s rhetoric.
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