Week 10 - Cybernetics / Human Use of Human Beings - Ars-onist

Does the advent of singularity shackle the meaningful role of cybernetics in technology and how do we redefine the human experience in an advancing cybernetic 21st century society?

Cybernetics have three main stages. First as theorised by Shannon with the information theory there is homeostasis, disembodied information which draws a clear distinction between the information and its content by the means of the quantification. Afterwards, there is a principle of reflexivity represented with an integrated observer in the system. This period came to question the disembodiment of the information. Finally, virtuality considers crucial the contextual presence of the social environment in the computer conginition. Today, it is interesting to consider that the technology mainly embodies the first stage. The latter seems to point that the cybernetics are the foundation of the technology as we know it. Perhaps, we’re only reaching the early ages of advanced technology to see the later stages of cybernetics omni-present. Therefore, it may be that the transcendence of the human mind into a machine is only a complementary stage in the computers evolution rather than a disruptive event for cybernetics.

Information, communication, "robustness" and the question of feedback, etc. explored in the previous readings have been brought back here under the common structure of cybernetics. As the role of communication in society - as Weiner  implied (p.16) (*) - proves its weight in today's technologies, we further question the outcomes of machine-human interactivity. As each generation progresses, the intersection between human and machine becomes heavily integrated. Will the transhumanist vision come true? Is it possible to make the human brain a perfect computer? We are likely on our way toward a further fusion between computers and our organic existence, yes; but the question of dualism (the mind versus the body), the complex nature of human interaction as evoked in Suchman’s Plans and Situated Actions are yet to be resolved.

(*) Norbert Wiener, “Cybernetics and History,” In Wiener, Norbert. The human use of human beings: Cybernetics and society. New York: Da capo press, 1954. Pp. 15-27.