Coördination for Understanding:
The Technology of Intelligence and
The Intelligence of Technology
Paul Pangaro
[This abstract describes a performance given at the University of Victoria
in 1988, at a meeting called CyberNET '88 that was co-sponsored by the American
Society for Cybernetics. Humberto Maturana, Herbert Brün and Gordon
Pask were in attendance, and part of my goal was to knit their concepts
and focus into an integrated whole. An unfinished 80-page monograph was
prepared afterward as a record of the performance.
This use of the term "coördination", to describe what must
take place to achieve understanding and shared models, was typical of my
consulting work of that period. Similarly the format of the sub-title was
often useful, a habit which has since played out.]
Abstract
For a general audience concerned with the role of technology in social interaction,
Dr Pangaro will use performance techniques and everyday metaphor to convey
how concepts from cybernetics can be powerful tools for shaping this role.
In keeping with the theme of the CyberNET '88 Conference at the University
of Victoria, this public lecture will focus with the following issues:
These latter notions need not sacrifice the goals of science or artificial
intelligence; they merely focus attention on human-defined needs. In an
era when human purposes can be instrumented and distributed to vast proportions,
we risk the creation of telematic technologies within which human purpose
is subordinated (witness "corporate culture").
It is crucial to adopt a science such as cybernetics where purpose and relativism,
and hence individuality and ethics, are central.
A framework for understanding how technology coordinates human activity,
and hence facilitates (or, indeed, allows) for intelligent interaction,
will be presented. The nature(s) of intelligence can be characterized, and
guidance for technological design can be obtained.
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