§This volume is based on the Stockholm conference on Culture, Language and Artificial Intelligence, which was organised by the Swedish Arbetslivascentrum in 1988. This conference brought together over three hundred and sixty people interested in the cultural impact of technology, and particularly of AI. The 20 challenging papers contained in this volume were presented, or prepared, at the conference. This book aims to demonstrate the breadth and complexity of the concept of "dialogue", particularly in relation to new technolgy and what follows in its wake: the effects it has on the development and preservation of occupational knowledge and skills, and its effects on society, culture and language. The philosophical and aesthetic nature of the contributions is due to the influence of the Dialogue Seminar, which was held continuously at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm during the conference, and in which several of the contributors to this book participated. This book springs from a conference held in Stockholm in May June 1988 on Culture, Language and Artificial Intelligence. It assembled more than 300 researchers and practitioners in the fields of technology, philosophy, history of ideas, literature, linguistics, social· science, etc. The conference was an initiative from the Swedish Center for Working Life, based on the project AI-Based Systems mzd the Future of Language, Knowledge and Re sponsibility in Professions within the COST 13 programme of the European Commission. Participants in the conference, or in some cases researchers in areas related to its aims, were chosen to contribute to this book. It was preceded by Knowledge, Skill and Artificial Intelligence (ed. B. Gbranzon and I. Josefson, Springer-Verlag, London, 1988) and Artificial Intelligence, Culture and Language (ed. B. Gbranzon and M. Florin, Springer-Verlag, 1990). The latter book springs, as this one, from the 1988 conference, and one further book will follow: Skill and Education: Reflection and Experience (Springer Verlag, planned autumn 1991). The philosophical and aesthetic interest of the contributions in the present volume is in large part due to the framework of the Dialogue Seminar, held regularly at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, in which several of the contributors have participated.
