Co Evolution Of Intelligent Socio Technical Systems

As the interconnectivity between humans through technical devices is becoming ubiquitous, the next step is already in the making: ambient intelligence, i.e. smart (technical) environments, which will eventually play the same active role in communication as the human players, leading to a co-evolution in all domains where real-time communication is essential. This topical volume, based on the findings of the Socionical European research project, gives equal attention to two highly relevant domains of applications: transport, specifically traffic, dynamics from the viewpoint of a socio-technical interaction and evacuation scenarios for large-scale emergency situations. Care was taken to investigate as much as possible the limits of scalability and to combine the modeling using complex systems science approaches with relevant data analysis.

This state-of-the-art Handbook provides unique insights into the governance practices and institutions shaping digitalized public spheres. Focusing on the power relations involved, it presents diverse approaches to key debates in media and communication governance, showcasing groundbreaking advances in the field. This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

Should digital technology be viewed as a new life form, sharing our ecosystem and coevolving with us? Are humans defining technology, or is technology defining humans? In this book, Edward Ashford Lee considers the case that we are less in control of the trajectory of technology than we think. It shapes us as much as we shape it, and it may be more defensible to think of technology as the result of a Darwinian coevolution than the result of top-down intelligent design. Richard Dawkins famously said that a chicken is an egg's way of making another egg. Is a human a computer's way of making another computer? To understand this question requires a deep dive into how evolution works, how humans are different from computers, and how the way technology develops resembles the emergence of a new life form on our planet. Lee presents the case for considering digital beings to be living, then offers counterarguments. What we humans do with our minds is more than computation, and what digital systems do—be teleported at the speed of light, backed up, and restored—may never be possible for humans. To believe that we are simply computations, he argues, is a “dataist” faith and scientifically indefensible. Digital beings depend on humans—and humans depend on digital beings. More likely than a planetary wipe-out of humanity is an ongoing, symbiotic coevolution of culture and technology.

This book is about the encounters of Colombian drug smugglers and the Colombian Navy, both in the open seas and along coastlines. Javier Guerrero C. specifically examines the technologies involved in the War on Drugs, such as the narcosubmarines and patrol boats, the knowledge required to transport drugs and the knowledge required to stop the illicit flows. The author presents compelling new evidence for advancing an understanding of technological innovation in antagonist contexts, as well as the symbiotic and co-evolutionary character of the process of technological innovation in the War on Drugs. This book will appeal both to practitioners and scholars interested in the War on Drugs and the production of technologies in outlaw contexts.

We are increasingly seeing computer systems which are expected to function without operator intervention. This is perhaps acceptable for running computer networks or traffic lights; however, we are now seeing computer systems deployed to qualitatively influence human judgments such as rulings on legal disputes or fitness for work to evaluate disability benefits. In keeping with the precautionary principle, it is important that those who are developing this capability — technologists and scientists — think through its potential implications.The aim of this book is to explore the technological and social and implications of computers and robots becoming increasingly ‘aware’ of their environment and the people in it, and their being increasingly ‘self-aware’ of their own existence within it.The wide-ranging scope of the text covers three different angles of the concept of ‘the computer after me’: (1) the next generation of computationally powerful aware systems; (2) systems in which the computer is aware of qualitatively impact human concerns such as law, health and rules; and (3) computers and robots which are aware of themselves.

The rise of social history has had a transforming influence on the history of early modern England. It has broadened the historical agenda to include many previously little-studied, or wholly neglected, dimensions of the English past. It has also provided a fuller context for understanding more established themes in the political, religious, economic and intellectual histories of the period. This volume serves two main purposes. Firstly, it summarises, in an accessible way, the principal findings of forty years of research on English society in this period, providing a comprehensive overview of social and cultural change in an era vital to the development of English social identities. Second, the chapters, by leading experts, also stimulate fresh thinking by not only taking stock of current knowledge but also extending it, identifying problems, proposing fresh interpretations and pointing to unexplored possibilities. It will be essential reading for students, teachers and general readers.

Articulating and illustrating how experience design can unlock experience innovation, this book offers a fresh perspective on effectuating corporate, public, social and whole system innovation by design. The book makes several contributions to the fields of innovation and design thinking by taking complexity science as its scientific point of reference. As such this is a highly provocative book for scholars, practitioners and students in the field of change and innovation.

Grounded in the theory of sociologist Karl Weick, this edited volume explores key concepts of educational leadership and organizational learning. Chapter authors analyze and reflect on the implications of Weick’s thinking on leadership preparation and development. Providing a thorough understanding of the influence of his ideas in education, this volume unpacks the ways in which Weick’s ideas influence and shape organizational learning and educational leadership and policy today.

This book offers a unique interdisciplinary perspective on the ethics of 'artificial intelligence' – autonomous, intelligent, (and connected) systems, or AISs, applying principles of social cognition to understand the social and ethical issues associated with the creation, adoption, and implementation of AISs. As humans become entangled in sociotechnical systems defined by human and artificial agents, there is a pressing need to understand how trust is created, used, and abused. Compounding the difficulty in answering these questions, stakeholders directly or indirectly affected by these systems differ in their motivations, understanding, and values. This volume provides a comprehensive resource to help stakeholders understand ethical issues of designing and implementing AISs using an ethical sensemaking approach. Starting with the general technical affordances of AIS, Dr. Jordan Richard Schoenherr considers the features of system design relating data integrity, selection and interpretation of algorithms, and the evolution processes that drive AISs innovation as a sociotechnological system. The poles of technophobia (algorithmic aversion) and technophilia (algorithmic preference) in the public perception of AISs are then described and considered against existing evidence, including issues ranging from the displacement and re-education needs of the human workforce, the impact of use of technology on interpersonal accord, and surveillance and cybersecurity. Ethical frameworks that provide tools for evaluating the values and outcomes of AISs are then reviewed, and how they can be aligned with ethical sensemaking processes identified by psychological science is explored. Finally, these disparate threads are brought together in a design framework. Also including sections on policies and guideline, gaming and social media, and Eastern philosophical frameworks, this is fascinating reading for students and academics in psychology, computer science, philosophy, and related areas, as well as professionals such as policy makers and those working with AI systems.

This is a book about educational fads, why they arise, and how we might learn to live with them. Those working in schools are subject to perpetual waves of novelty in the name of school improvement. And yet, in the long term very little actually changes. Big ideas come and go, leaving only faint clues as to their existence. The trouble is that the appealing stories that take hold will never solve the fundamental problems of modern schooling. The school system is too complex, too diverse, and too uncertain to be fixed by any Big Idea. Before too long, the Next Big Thing replaces the Last Big Thing. The Next Big Thing in School Improvement brings together the unique perspectives of a policy analyst, a headteacher, and a classroom teacher, to explain why it is that the school system often resists our attempts to improve it. Drawing on the recent history of English education policy, a variety of disciplinary traditions, and the emerging field of complexity science, the authors present a new take on why the school system behaves in ways that defy our attempts to change it. This is a book about finding a better way to improve our schools. It is not the Next Big Thing, but it does explain why there will inevitably be one, and what to do when it arrives.