Winograd and Flores on Computers and conversation

Winograd and Flores wrote this in 1984. Have things changed much?

Computers do not exist, in the sense of things possessing objective features and functions, outside of language. They are created in the conversations human beings engage in when they cope with and anticipate breakdown. Our central claim in this book is that the current theoretical discourse about computers is based on a misinterpretation of the nature of human cognition and language. Computers designed on the basis of this misconception provide only impoverished possibilities for modelling and enlarging the scope of human understanding. They are restricted to representing knowledge as the acquisition and manipulation of facts, and communication as the transferring of information. As a result, we are now witnessing a major breakdown in the design of computer technology - a breakdown that reveals the rationalistically oriented background of discourse in which our current understanding is embedded. 

[...] Computers are not only designed in language but are themselves equipment for language. They will not just reflect our understanding of language, but will at the same time create new possibilities for the speaking and listening that we do - for creating ourselves in language. (Understanding computers and cognition, p78)

Later on Winograd and Flores defend their argument that computers are tools for keeping track of commitments that people make to each other through recording speech acts. They argue:

New computer-based communication technology can help anticipate and avoid breakdowns. It is impossible to completely avoid breakdowns by design, since it is in the nature of any design process that it must select a finite set of anticipations from the situation. But we can partially anticipate situations where breakdowns are likely to occur (by noting their recurrence) and we can provide people with the tools and procedures they need to cope with them. Moreover, new conversational networks can be designed that give the organisation the ability to recognise and realise new possibilities.   (p158)

I'm curious about this because it resonates with many of the aims of big data today. Winograd and Flores were anti-AI, but clearly the mass storage of speech acts does serve to reveal patterns of recurrence and breakdown which do provide anticipatory intelligence (which is what Google Now does).

I think the real issue concerns a deeper understanding of language and conversation, and particularly the inter-subjective nature of conversation - that is, the con-versare nature of it (dancing).