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Let the Machines Out. Towards Hybrid Social Systems University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk Faculty of Arts and Humanities School of Art, Design and Architecture 2017-01-01 Let the machines out. towards hybrid social systems Straeubig, M http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/14967 Proceedings of AISB Annual Convention 2017 All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. Let the Machines out. Towards Hybrid Social Systems. Michael Straeubig 1 1 INTRODUCTION I speculate about some of the implications that arise from developing hybrid social systems based on this particular direction of systems When Alan Turing proposed the imitation game as a method to in- theory. vestigate the question if machines can think, he described a social system. However, the various disciplines that have pursued this sem- inal enquiry rarely touch base with sociological concepts. Cybernet- 2 ROOTS ics developed into various interdisciplinary fields, yet it was mainly rooted in physiological models. In the meantime, the mainstream of The following description focuses on five major influences of Luh- AI focused on cognitive problem solving, predominately from a top- mann’s theory that are relevant for the present discussion. down approach. Traditional cognitive science rests on the concept Distinctions: The abstract foundation for Luhmann’s theory lies of organisms as information processing systems - so does Artificial in the distinction between distinction and identity. The formal back- Life, but from a biological simulation perspective. The recently revi- ground has been developed by George Spencer-Brown in his calculus talised branch of machine learning has been successful in deploying of indications. While his work ”Laws of Form” can be read as the de- bottom-up models combined with large amounts of data. Large scale scription of a specific logical calculus, Spencer-Brown’s intention is simulations of the brain are expected to deliver new knowledge about ”proto-logical”. It demonstrates that the fundamental operation of a the human brain. ”Second-generation” cognitive science and devel- system is drawing distinctions (as opposed to constructing identities). opmental robotics are embodied and apply neural computation. System/Environment distinction: There are two fundamentally One might be tempted to say that progress has been made on different ways to observe a system. Traditionally systems are under- brains, bodies and on models of minds. I claim that there is some- stood by relations between their elements. In AI, these elements are thing largely missing in this picture, which is the social aspect. There constructed as agents that perceive, act and communicate. The be- is Social AI, and it embraces a wide variety of topics and concerns haviour of the system is then observed and analysed according to - from Stafford Beers cybernetic vision of society to simulations certain metrics, either derived from the individual behaviours or as of interacting agents, complex systems theory, language, imitation emergent properties. The second approach, going back to Ludwig and social learning, social network analysis and social bots, enact- von Bertalanffy, identifies the relevant distinction for a system as the ment, human-machine interaction, augmented and virtual environ- one between the system and its environment. Those systems are op- ments, robot assisted therapy and behavioural game theory, to name erationally closed and are located within the respective environments a few. I also would like to include autonomous weapons, computer of each other. worms and viruses, in particular crypto-ransomware, into this context Autopoietic systems: the term ”autopoietic system” was coined of social systems. From the other side, an interdisciplinary bridge is by Chilean biologists Humbero Maturana and Francisco Varela. Au- constructed under the label of digital sociology. The process of mu- topoiesis denotes the capability of a system to produce and when tual approximation is accompanied by prolific discourses around ma- necessary reproduce their own elements. To observe autopoiesis, the chine ethics and emerging legal issues. A recently introduced topic respective system references are crucial. Biological cells are autopoi- of discussion is if robots should pay taxes. etic systems; they (re-)construct their own elements. Humans grow So AI observes sociology, and sociology observes AI - yet they legs, but do not re-grow a lost one. Axolotls do, however, with the do not share a coherent theoretical program and fundamental on- help of some friends. tological questions are still left to the philosophers. To propose an Radical constructivism: An epistemological position regarding the alternative route, I consider Niklas Luhmann’s theory of social sys- distinction between a system and its environment arises from the tems as a suitable foundation for guiding the development of hybrid school of radical constructivism. According to this view, knowledge social systems. A hybrid social system is understood as a social as- is not construed as a representation of an external reality, but as a semblage in which minds and machines mingle: humans, machines, state of the system that enables some fit with the environment. Theo- certain things, cyborgs. Some animals are welcome, too. ries of acting/enactment arrive at similar conclusions from different To this end, I present a few selected features of Luhmann’s theory premises. and briefly visit some of their theoretical foundations: distinctions, in Second order cybernetics: the original concept of cybernetics was particular the distinction between system and environment, autopoi- developed by Norbert Wiener in his groundbreaking description of etic systems, radical constructivism, and (second order) cybernetics. self-regulating control loops. Second order cybernetics developed these concepts further by introducing the observer into the obser- 1 Cognovo and School of Art, Design and Architecture, Plymouth University, vation. We arrive at systems of observers observing each other. This UK, email: [email protected] paradigm shift is comparable to the one from Newton to Einstein. It also leads to a significant but - I would argue - unavoidable concep- Radical constructivism suggests that social systems involving ar- tual complication. tificial agents may construct knowledge in a way that is not only structurally different from human knowledge - it may outright con- tradict some of our beliefs. During a debate, we treat the statements 3 SOCIAL SYSTEMS of our counterpart as opinions, not as facts. In the same manner, an Luhmann ties up these strands into an intrinsically general theory artificial agent forms opinions as consequences of the autopoiesis of of systems. He himself focuses on the development of a social the- the system. These opinions might not necessarily be ours. In a so- ory based on the work of Talcott Parsons. He incorporates Spencer- cial system, dissent does not cause logical contradictions. Instead it Browns concepts of distinction and indication as the fundamental is processed through different selections in the medium of meaning. operations of a system. In general, he distinguishes biological, psy- Finally, artificial social agents need to be exposed to social situa- chic, and social systems. These systems can be structurally coupled, tions in order to develop. What the machines need to do is to learn say, while writing a paper about systems theory. Yet spiking neu- continuously without (permanent) supervision. They also need to ex- rons, thoughts and an almost finished draft that is expected for pub- pose a sufficiently large surface of perception and interaction: ma- lication are located in different systems that operate with fundamen- chines that play, robots that go hitchhiking or share our beds or roam tally different distinctions. For Luhmann, these systems are opera- the campus while politely avoiding humans, machines that perform tionally closed, They are operating in an autopoietical manner by re- art for a robotic audience, artbots that judge each other, exhibitions constructing their own elements, and are irritated but not determined where humans need not apply, social bots that influence elections. by their respective environments. This means that in Luhmann’s con- These approaches are being explored and we need more of them. text we cannot talk about concepts like social aspects of cognition, When we design hybrid social systems, the key lies not in design- or observe an external environment that is part of the cognitive sys- ing the system, it lies in the interaction between the system and its tem. Nor can a biological system itself be social. In my opinion this environment. This suggests to release the machines from the lab as separation has the benefit to be precise about the distinctions that we soon as a minimum of functionality is implemented. The machines observe: in this case that the part/whole distinction has been replaced need to be out there and they need to be among us. by the one between system and environment. Social systems (interactions, organisations and institutions) and 5 CONCLUSION AND FURTHER WORK psychic systems (minds) operate with meaning. Meaning is under- stood as a medium in which a system can
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