Naming a Shared Machine Does Not Extend Its Service Life

An instrumental-variables estimate across 214 workplaces and community clubs, instrumented on model-designation pronounceability

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities asks whether the human names given to shared working machines --- the club shed's ride-on mower, the bakery's dough mixer, the hot-water urn on the bench --- do anything to how long those machines stay in service. Asset-register extracts, service dockets and acquisition invoices for 1,806 items at 214 workplaces and community clubs are analysed by two-stage least squares, with naming instrumented on the rated pronounceability of each item's manufacturer model designation. The naive association of +3.6 years does not survive identification: the instrumented estimate is +0.2 years (95 per cent confidence interval −2.6 to +3.0), and no equipment class retains a positive effect at conventional levels. The poster reads the result as reverse causation, machines earning names by lasting rather than lasting by being named, and notes the subsequent removal of 1,412 recorded equipment names from the Horizon Register as unverified attributes.

@misc{slop_ioerp9,
  author       = {Fenna Okoro and Anouk Mensah and Kwame Lindqvist},
  title        = {Naming a Shared Machine Does Not Extend Its Service Life: An instrumental-variables estimate across 214 workplaces and community clubs, instrumented on model-designation pronounceability},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.ioerp9},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-half-the-shared-ioerp9/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}