scholarly journals Ethical Regulators and Super-Ethical Systems

Systems ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Mick Ashby
Keyword(s):  
Grand Challenge ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Third Order ◽  
Time Line ◽  
Requisite Variety ◽  
Ethical Design ◽  
Law Of Requisite Variety ◽  
Possibility Space ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
Ethical Systems

This paper combines the good regulator theorem with the law of requisite variety and seven other requisites that are necessary and sufficient for a cybernetic regulator to be effective and ethical. The ethical regulator theorem provides a basis for systematically evaluating and improving the adequacy of existing or proposed designs for systems that make decisions that can have ethical consequences; regardless of whether the regulators are humans, machines, cyberanthropic hybrids, organizations, or government institutions. The theorem is used to define an ethical design process that has potentially far-reaching implications for society. A six-level framework is proposed for classifying cybernetic and superintelligent systems, which highlights the existence of a possibility-space bifurcation in our future time-line. The implementation of “super-ethical” systems is identified as an urgent imperative for humanity to avoid the danger that superintelligent machines might lead to a technological dystopia. It is proposed to define third-order cybernetics as the cybernetics of ethical systems. Concrete actions, a grand challenge, and a vision of a super-ethical society are proposed to help steer the future of the human race and our wonderful planet towards a realistically achievable minimum viable cyberanthropic utopia.

scholarly journals Ethical Regulators and Super-Ethical Systems

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mick Ashby
Keyword(s):  
Grand Challenge ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Third Order ◽  
Time Line ◽  
Requisite Variety ◽  
Ethical Design ◽  
Law Of Requisite Variety ◽  
Possibility Space ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
Ethical Systems

This paper combines the Good Regulator Theorem with the Law of Requisite Variety and seven other requisites that are necessary and sufficient for a cybernetic regulator to be effective and ethical. The resulting Ethical Regulator Theorem provides a basis for systematically evaluating and improving the adequacy of existing or proposed designs for systems that make decisions that can have ethical consequences; regardless of whether the regulators are human, machines, cyberanthropic hybrids, organizations, corporations, or government institutions. The theorem is then used to define an ethical design process that has potentially far-reaching implications for society. A six-level framework is proposed for classifying cybernetic and superintelligent systems, which highlights the existence of a possibility-space bifurcation in our future time-line. The implementation of “super-ethical” systems is identified as an urgent imperative for humanity to avoid the danger that superintelligent machines might lead to a technological dystopia. Third-order cybernetics is defined as the cybernetics of ethical systems. Concrete actions, a grand challenge, and a vision of a super-ethical society are proposed to help steer the future of the human race and our wonderful planet towards a realistically achievable minimum viable cyberanthropic utopia.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Engineering 4.0: A Proposal to Conceive Manufacturing Systems for Industry 4.0 Centred on the Human Factor (DfHFinI4.0)

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (13) ◽  
pp. 4442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susana Suarez-Fernandez de Miranda ◽  
Francisco Aguayo-González ◽  
Jorge Salguero-Gómez ◽  
María Jesús Ávila-Gutiérrez
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Industry 4.0 ◽  
Manufacturing Systems ◽  
Human Factor ◽  
Management Training ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Reference Architecture ◽  
Life Cycle Engineering ◽  
Requisite Variety ◽  
Law Of Requisite Variety

Engineering 4.0 environments are characterised by the digitisation, virtualisation, and connectivity of products, processes, and facilities composed of reconfigurable and adaptive socio-technical cyber-physical manufacturing systems (SCMS), in which Operator 4.0 works in real time in VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) contexts and markets. This situation gives rise to the interest in developing a framework for the conception of SCMS that allows the integration of the human factor, management, training, and development of the competencies of Operator 4.0 as fundamental aspects of the aforementioned system. The present paper is focused on answering how to conceive the adaptive manufacturing systems of Industry 4.0 through the operation, growth, and development of human talent in VUCA contexts. With this objective, exploratory research is carried, out whose contribution is specified in a framework called Design for the Human Factor in Industry 4.0 (DfHFinI4.0). From among the conceptual frameworks employed therein, the connectivist paradigm, Ashby’s law of requisite variety and Vigotsky’s activity theory are taken into consideration, in order to enable the affective-cognitive and timeless integration of the human factor within the SCMS. DfHFinI4.0 can be integrated into the life cycle engineering of the enterprise reference architectures, thereby obtaining manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0 focused on the human factor. The suggested framework is illustrated as a case study for the Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture (PERA) methodology, which transforms it into PERA 4.0.

scholarly journals Agentic Misfit: An Empirical Demonstration of Non-Matching Human Agency amid Complexity

2020 ◽  
pp. 017084062094455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Poulis ◽  
Efthimios Poulis ◽  
Paul Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Governance ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Organizational Decline ◽  
Requisite Variety ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Law Of Requisite Variety ◽  
The Law ◽  
Novel Concept ◽  
Empirical Demonstration ◽  
Do So

Alignment of organizations with external imperatives is seen as a sine qua non of proper organizing and strategizing by many fit and complexity scholars. Any deviation from this management mantra engenders organizational decline and, ultimately, mortality. We put this axiomatic principle under empirical scrutiny and use the law of requisite variety as our organizing principle to do so. The law is an iconic cornerstone of this matching contingency logic and it has served to legitimize a wide range of fit decisions in, e.g., leadership, organizational learning and corporate governance. Inspired by organizational vignettes inhabiting antithetical complexity regimes, we introduce a novel concept, which we label ‘agentic misfit’. In this way, we deconstruct deterministic assumptions related to environmental fittingness, we challenge teleological orientations in the fit literature, and we flesh out the viability of non-matching human agency amid complexity.

Characterization of Extreme Points of Multi-Stochastic Tensors

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 459-474 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rihuan Ke ◽  
Wen Li ◽  
Mingqing Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Operation Research ◽  
Convex Combination ◽  
Sufficient Conditions ◽  
Extreme Points ◽  
Stochastic Matrices ◽  
Third Order ◽  
New Approach ◽  
3 Dimensional ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient

AbstractStochastic matrices play an important role in the study of probability theory and statistics, and are often used in a variety of modeling problems in economics, biology and operation research. Recently, the study of tensors and their applications became a hot topic in numerical analysis and optimization. In this paper, we focus on studying stochastic tensors and, in particular, we study the extreme points of a set of multi-stochastic tensors. Two necessary and sufficient conditions for a multi-stochastic tensor to be an extreme point are established. These conditions characterize the “generators” of multi-stochastic tensors. An algorithm to search the convex combination of extreme points for an arbitrary given multi-stochastic tensor is developed. Based on our obtained results, some expression properties for third-order and n-dimensional multi-stochastic tensors (${n=3}$ and 4) are derived, and all extreme points of 3-dimensional and 4-dimensional triply-stochastic tensors can be produced in a simple way. As an application, a new approach for the partially filled square problem under the framework of multi-stochastic tensors is given.

Multiple objectivity: an anti‐relativist approach to situated knowledge

Kybernetes ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (7/8) ◽  
pp. 995-1003 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ron Eglash
Keyword(s):  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Situated Knowledge ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Requisite Variety ◽  
Law Of Requisite Variety ◽  
Relativist Approach ◽  
Epistemological Relativism ◽  
Cybernetic Concept

PurposeThe paper aims to describe the inadequate nature of both “mono‐objectivist” approaches, which deny any role of social influence in science, and relativist social constructions, which fail to distinguish between science and pseudoscience. It outlines an alternative conceptual framework that allows for the possibility of social construction of science, while preventing epistemological relativism.Design/methodology/approachThe study utilizes the cybernetic concept of recursion to show how science can bend back on itself, investigating its own foundations, without undermining its ability to improve our empirical understanding of the world. The paper makes use of several case studies to define specific mechanisms that show how the process of knowledge production in science can steer a course between reduction to a single “right answer,” and fragmentation into subjective interpretations.FindingsThe paper concludes by showing how the cybernetic recursion of multiple objectivity can also be applied to cybernetics itself. In particular, it suggests that such recursive investigations allow us to reconsider the Law of Requisite Variety, and envision an alternative form that can better account for the complexity that arises in self‐generating systems.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is unlikely to be of use to scientists looking for epistemological proof of singular right answers, or social constructivists looking for proof of epistemological relativism.Practical implicationsThe paper suggests that researchers in constructivism need not limit their work for fear that it will lead to relativist conclusions.Originality/valueThis paper fulfils an identified need to offer an alternative to current developments in the field of science and technology studies.

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