’Welcome to the machines’: autism and the acquisition of tacit knowledge

Approaches to the ontology of autism have been evolving ever since the phenomenon came into the clinical lexicon, yet the notion of the autistic person somehow being ‘machine-like’, incapable of true socialisation has remained a repeated descriptive metaphor. This medicalised typology of a separable category of humans, incapable of social reciprocity is criticised within this paper, by utilising the theoretical framework of tacit knowledge as developed by Collins and Evans (2007). This paper presents a theoretical reflection from the viewpoint of an autistic academic. In conclusion, the argument is made that the social parasitism commented upon by Collins and Evans (2007) is never a ‘zero-sum’ game, with supposed ‘low functioning’ autistic people often finding avenues in which to communicate. The counter-examples of those who build a capacity for social communication are not limited to those deemed to have ‘mild symptoms’, but the vast majority of those on the spectrum.