Tag: Conversation for Action

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Cybernetics, AI, and Ethical Conversations

“As a designer, I shall act always so as to increase 
 the total number of choices for a user.”

Quote above: An approach to interface design based on Heinz von Foerster’s Ethical Imperative where “choices” are distinguished from “options” — options are anything that is possible, while choices are only those options that are viable and well-suited to this user in this moment.

More and more, today’s AI makes the world we see and the world we live in — and we need to respond. In a presentation hosted by the AiTech Agora at TU Delft, Paul Pangaro responds with a proposal for collaboration that bridges AI and cybernetics with conversation.

Click for video of presentation.          Click for full abstract and slides.

“Pandemic” comes from “all” and “people”, meaning something negative that effects us all. While not biological, today’s AI foments polarization, pushes irrelevant products, spreads social bias, and surveils our lives. AI touches billions and sways more of us,  in more invasive and uncontrolled ways, every day.

AI came out of cybernetics, a practice that evolved from a series of trans-disciplinary conversations called the Macy Meetings. This history offers a way forward. Continue reading “Cybernetics, AI, and Ethical Conversations”

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Update — #NewMacyMeeting #1 — Why Can’t Cybernetics Tame Pandemics?

Click here for the video of this panel.

Click here for direct link to panel description on the conference webpage.

Click here for updated description of #NewMacyMeetings initiative.

Here are more details for our first meeting of the revival of the Macy Meetings in cybernetics on Sunday September 13th at Noon EDT, first reported in this prior post, as follows:

Our speakers Larry Richards and Ben Sweeting will respond to the provocation, “Why Can’t Cybernetics Tame Pandemics?”  Then our respondents will each answer the questions, “Where did the speakers agree?” and “What did they leave out?” Our confirmed respondents are BCE Scott and Patricia Ticineto Clough. The speakers are then allowed to respond, and the process repeats. Read below for a longer description of context and intention.

This one-hour session is part of the 2-day 2020 Global Conversation Conference, a joint effort of the American Society for Cybernetics and the British Cybernetic Society. Registration is required but a donation is completely optional. Please go to this ASC page for more information and the link to register. You will receive a Zoom video invitation thereafter.

The moderator the session, Paul Pangaro, has initiated #NewMacy in response to 21st-century global pandemics for which COVID is only one, while certainly vivid and immediately threatening. Click here for more details on the overall direction of the #NewMacyMeetings.  Read on below for the detailed description of this first experiment In the revival of #NewMacy. Continue reading “Update — #NewMacyMeeting #1 — Why Can’t Cybernetics Tame Pandemics?”

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Pandemics + Cybernetics = #NewMacyMeetings @Sept 13 Noon EDT

Above: Photograph of the front page of the 10th Macy Meeting from 1953

Click here for direct link to panel session on the conference webpage.

Click here for Update on #NewMacyMeeting #1 with description of intention and participant names.

Click here for updated description of #NewMacyMeetings initiative.

We live in the unprecedented era of multiple global pandemics: COVID-19, rapacious technology, uncontrolled climate change, inequitable healthcare, systemic racism, unprincipled socio-economic structures, food and water insecurity… the list is far longer. Science, governance, and society have failed. If we’re going to make a dent we need sharper systemic tools, much broader inclusivity, and new generations engaged in conversations for action.

The original Macy Meetings were held from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s, convened to explore the new art and science of systems that have purpose: cybernetics. Participants were international scholars who brought cybernetic frameworks back to their disciplines and changed the global discourse across the hard and soft sciences.

Front page of 10th Macy Meeting Proceedings

You are invited to the launch of #NewMacyMeetings in September 2020. This will be a modest first session, one of a series of experiments before a more formal and large-scale effort in 2021. This first session is called Why Can’t Cybernetics Tame Pandemics? This will comprise 2 speakers giving short positions on that question, and a few rounds with respondents who will answer: Where did the speakers agree? What did they leave out?

While following the ground-breaking tradition of trans-disciplinary conversations established by the original Macy Meetings, our #NewMacyMeetings must also be trans-global (diverse and inclusive) as well as trans-generational (engaging all ages).

Continue reading “Pandemics + Cybernetics = #NewMacyMeetings @Sept 13 Noon EDT”