{"id":2585,"date":"2018-03-05T08:50:15","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T13:50:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ccsmfa.wordpress.com\/?p=2585"},"modified":"2021-01-18T18:59:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T23:59:41","slug":"talking-about-the-future-of-cybernetics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/2018\/03\/talking-about-the-future-of-cybernetics\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking about The Future of Cybernetics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to see<\/a> the video from the talk. Click here to download<\/a> the PDF of the slides.<\/p>\n

Cybernetics is often confused with robotics and AI, chip implants and\u00a0biomechatronics<\/a>, and more. Don’t want to disappoint you but cybernetics is none of those things (though it has a lot to say about all of them). Cybernetics is not freezing dead people, neither. (I’m hoping that’s less of a surprise. Maybe not.)<\/p>\n

\"worlds
Worlds Fair Nano \u2013 March 2018 \u2013 San Francisco<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hoping to clear up all that confusion in 20 minutes, I gave a talk on Saturday, March 10th, 2018, at 2pm at Worlds Fair Nano<\/a>\u00a0in San Francisco.<\/p>\n

To speak about the future of cybernetics (as in this short video<\/a>) is to speak about its past and present (requiring another short video<\/a>). In an era that vacillates between rampant AI utopianism and rampant AI dystopianism<\/a>, what does cybernetics have to offer our future?<\/p>\n

Cybernetics<\/a> sees the world as made up of systems that have purpose. It attributes agency to any mechanism\u2014human or biological, mechanical or electronic, digital or analog, linguistic or social\u2014that sets a goal for a purposive system. The cybernetic viewpoint is grounded in the loop from action to outcome to feedback to action again. It sees causality as circular<\/a>. (Basic science sees causality as linear.) It’s that simple and that subtle:\u00a0Cybernetics is a way of looking.<\/em>\u00a0It looks through the lens of purpose. What’s really amazing is what happens next. Let’s look at our looking:<\/p>\n

\"2nd-order
We interact with the world by looking at how our actions bring change (right). Once we look at our looking (left), we are responsible for what we see and say as well as what we do.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Why did we see what we saw? Because of who we are. How did we choose to explain \u00a0what we see\u2014with what ideas and relationships? Because of our purpose. As observers, we inevitably have purpose\u2014we see cybernetically<\/em>. For all these reasons we are responsible for being transparent<\/a> about our purpose and for behaving ethically. (While we’re here, let me mention the most amazing paper about cybernetics and ethics<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Spoiler alert about the talk:\u00a0Behaving ethically requires conversation<\/a>. And that’s the future of cybernetics: conversation<\/a>. Wait\u2014and consciousness<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to see the video from the talk. Click here to download the PDF of the slides. Cybernetics is often confused with robotics and AI, chip implants and\u00a0biomechatronics, and more. Don’t want to disappoint you but cybernetics is none of those things (though it has a lot to say about all of them). Cybernetics … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Talking about The Future of Cybernetics”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13,6,7,9],"tags":[61,62,77,91],"class_list":["post-2585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cybernetics","category-interaction-design","category-ixd-evolution","category-pangaro","tag-cybernetics-2","tag-design","tag-gordon-pask","tag-interaction-design-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paKWzH-FH","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2585"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3366,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2585\/revisions\/3366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pangaro.com\/designconversation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}