Category: Social-Technical

• With AI, we can’t

  “Humans lie and manipulate each other’s emotions all the time, but at least we can reasonably guess at someone’s motivations, agenda and methods. With AI, we can’t.” Ethicist Carissa Véliz argues that chatbots that use emojis are emotionally manipulative: without appropriate safeguards, the technology could undermine people’s autonomy.  A 2021 study found that people consistently…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-15

  #sense-making, AI, Decision Intelligence, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #sense-making, #TheInformationLens

• A map is not the territory it represents, but…

  I quote one of the key ideas of my activities, as stated bij Korzybski: A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness Korzybski, “Science and sanity: An introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics.“ This post is created to…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-03

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Science, Social-Technical

  #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• 4 kinds of creativity

  HBR just published a nice article on 4 kinds of creativity.In the decades to come, creativity will be key to doing most jobs well. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman and Martin E.P. Seligman offer a new typology that breaks creative thinking into four types:  – integration, or showing that two things that appear different are the same; – splitting, or seeing how…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-03

  Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Social-Technical

  #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Millionaire spending incompatible with 1.5 ◦C ambitions

  This article in Cleaner Production Letters studies the implications of a continued growth in the number of millionaires for emissions, and its impact on the depletion of the remaining carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5 °C (about 400 Gt CO2). Much evidence suggests that the wealthiest individuals contribute disproportionally to climate change. Findings suggest that…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-03

  #stakeholder economy, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Policy, Science, Social-Technical

  #EconomicBehavior, #StakeholderEconomy, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Neuroplasticity enables bio‑cultural feedback

  The scientific reports article “Neuroplasticity enables bio‑cultural feedback in Paleolithic stone‑tool making” elaborates on the idea described in articles like The comparative neuroscience and neuroarchaeological evidence indicate that functional systems supporting stone tool making have undergone substantial change over human evolution, and that these changes may be relevant to a much wider range of distinctively…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-22

  #Wicked, Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Science, Social-Technical

  #Analogy, #downcausation, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• “You Are Not Expected to Understand This”

  When starting my professional career in IT, I got close to the holy grale of the UNIX source code, well known for the most striking comment in IT history. “You Are Not Expected to Understand This”. Few of us give much thought to computer code or how it comes to be. The very word “code”…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-10

  #Wicked, Information Technology, Science, Social-Technical

• Humans are keen to exploit benevolent AI

  Algorithm exploitation: Humans are keen to exploit benevolent AI: We cooperate with other people despite the risk of being exploited or hurt. If future artificial intelligence (AI) systems are benevolent and cooperative toward us, what will we do in return? Our cooperative dispositions are weaker when we interact with AI. Contrary to the hypothesis that…

  walterstiers

  2023-01-11

  AI, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Social-Technical

  #Analogy, #DecisionIntelligence, #EconomicBehavior, #HumanAI, #TheInformationLens

• Develop or disrupt & team size

  “Large teams develop and small teams disrupt science and technology“Increases in team size have been attributed to the specialization of scientific activities, improvements in communication technology, or the complexity of modern problems that require interdisciplinary solutions. This shift in team size raises the question of whether and how the character of the science and technology…

  walterstiers

  2023-01-09

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Policy, Science, Social-Technical, Walking

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• ATTENTION: “What You Know is What You See.” & you can change both…

  Attending is a cognitive process that incorporates a person’s knowledge, goals, and expectations. What we perceive when we attend to one thing is different from what we perceive when we attend to something else. Yet, it is often argued that attentional effects do not count as evidence that perception is influenced by cognition. Two arguments…

  walterstiers

  2023-01-09

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Information Technology, Neurobiology/psychology, Social-Technical

  #Analogy, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Adaptability and leaders

  “Leadership for organizational adaptability: A theoretical synthesis and integrative framework“One of the biggest challenges facing leaders today is the need to position and enable organizations and people for adaptability in the face of increasingly dynamic and demanding environments. Leadership for organizational adaptability is different from traditional leadership or leading change. It involves enabling the adaptive process…

  walterstiers

  2023-01-04

  #stakeholder economy, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Policy, Social-Technical

  #EconomicBehavior, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #StakeholderEconomy, #TheInformationLens

• Degrowth can work

  “The global economy is structured around growth — the idea that firms, industries and nations must increase production every year, regardless of whether it is needed. This dynamic is driving climate change and ecological breakdown. High-income economies, and the corporations and wealthy classes that dominate them, are mainly responsible for this problem and consume energy…

  walterstiers

  2022-12-12

  #stakeholder economy, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Policy, Social-Technical

  #EconomicBehavior, #ProblemSolvingMind, #StakeholderEconomy

• The Wisdom of the Inner Crowd

  The quality of decisions depends on the accuracy of estimates of relevant quantities. According to the wisdom of crowds principle, accurate estimates can be obtained by combining the judgements of different individuals. This principle has been successfully applied to improve, for example, economic forecasts, medical judgements and meteorological predictions. Unfortunately, there are many situations in…

  walterstiers

  2022-12-09

  Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind

• Wouter inspired me to (re)act

  The most valuable communication happens in informal and unpredictable ways. (Most organizational charts are an illusion…) Wouter,je uitspraak is zowel waar als relevant. De meeste bedrijven baseren zich nog steeds op de near-composability van H. Simon, een organisatiemodel dat werkt, maar alleen voor korte-termijn doelstellingen. Een bedrijf is  complexer dan wat near-composability kan aanreiken. “no…

  walterstiers

  2022-12-09

  #Cynefin, #Sensemaking, #stakeholder economy, #Wicked, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Design Thinking, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Kindness in Short Supply: Evidence for Inadequate Prosocial Input

  The social context we live in, has some complex, but important characteristics, and our well-being depends on the feedback we get. In the article Kindness in short supply: Evidence for inadequate prosocial input by Jennifer E.Abel, Preeti Vani, Nicole Abi-Esber, Hayley Blunden, Juliana Schroeder, the importance of kind feedback support is expressed. In summary: In…

  walterstiers

  2022-11-29

  #Sensemaking, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Social-Technical

• It all comes together in a perfect storm :: “Keep it Simple”

  Three different levels of information processing show a remarkable alignment. They all are guided by similar principles, which do map and overlap.Let me briefly summarize them: First:Active Inference , a sentient behaviour theory, builds on the free energy principle. FEP implies a coupling between the internal and external states of a system that is symmetric:…

  walterstiers

  2022-11-14

  #Cynefin, #Sensemaking, Active Inference, AI, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science, Social-Technical

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty, #Wicked

• Conscious Body (&Mind) A lecture given by Deric

  Derics Brownds published a summary of a recent lecture on his website The start of the lecture is setting a very important message I’ve learned about work that has shown, in just the past 10-15 years, that much of what we thought we knew about how our minds work isn’t quite right, our commonsense notions,…

  walterstiers

  2022-10-25

  Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens

• Samenwerken als Ecosysteem

  De omschrijving ecosysteem voor een samenwerking kan misleidend zijn. De verschillende activiteiten die de deelnemers dienen uitvoeren, bestaat uit een stroom van informatie, beslissingen, acties, risico, voordelen en waarde, die bij een ecosysteem begrensd of toegeëigend kan worden aan ‘het ecosysteem’. (Zie hierbij ook het concept van FEP). Indien de vermelde stromen in essentie ruimer…

  walterstiers

  2022-10-11

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Social-Technical, Sustainability

  #DecisionIntelligence, #Ecosystem, #TheInformationLens

• Samenwerking en Ecosystemen

  Deze aanpak van de meeste contracten bestaat uit het uitbesteden van opdrachten zonder bijzondere aandacht aan gestructureerd overlegorganen voor gemeenschappelijke beslissingen. Deze werkwijze is terug te voeren op een inzicht in de geschiedenis van “Near-Decomposability”.Herbert Simon is een van de iconen van Near-Composability, een beheer- en bestuur methodologie, die grondig uitgewerkt is een veelvoud management-methodes.…

  walterstiers

  2022-10-11

  #Cynefin, #Sensemaking, #stakeholder economy, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Social-Technical, Sustainability

  #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Long live the Queen (he/his)

  The red queen is well knwon, and drives our current economic thinking (too much). I’ve already mentioned the fact of a long history of this theory of ‘Red Queen’ among evolutionary disciplines. There are alternatives, like ‘niche construct’ or ‘White Queen’ , more related to ideas like “commons“, based on ‘survival of the fittest’, in stead of ‘.. of…

  walterstiers

  2022-09-15

  #Sensemaking, #stakeholder economy, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Policy, Social-Technical, Sustainability

  #EconomicBehavior, #ProblemSolvingMind, #StakeholderEconomy, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty

• Nice TED speech on capital psycho pathology

  I’ve been pointed to the great lecture Jon Ronson delivered at TED2012: “Strange answers to the psychopath test” It becomes very interesting and maybe even somewhat scary from minute 9. Some parts o the transcripts to get the idea: capitalism at its most ruthless rewards psychopathic behavior — the lack of empathy, the glibness, cunning, manipulative.  So, here’s…

  walterstiers

  2022-08-25

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty

• The Learning Power of Listening

  Sensemaking is related to the mapping and understanding of entangled complex situations and deciding upon the first best move. This all is best observed through stories and story-telling analysis, like the Cynefin Sensemaker. Oxfam just relesed a great guide “The Learning Power of Listening Practical guidance for using SenseMaker“, showing their use of the method…

  walterstiers

  2022-08-04

  #Cynefin, #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Policy, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens

• Policy making and governance of complex projects

  A very interesting use of this sensemaking appporach towards the governance and policymaking is suggested by a great inspiring work towards the policy making and governance of complex projects is the recent publication from JRC Knowledge For Policy: Supporting policy with scientific evidence Competences for policymaking, Competence frameworks for policymakers and researchers working on public policy. I appreciate the competence…

  walterstiers

  2022-08-04

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Design Thinking, Life Ideas, Policy, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Supporting sensemaking and decisions with scientific evidence

  If you have the opportunity to work on a complex problem, including change at the technical, organizational and governance/policy level of a rather complicated environment, you can considered to be lucky to start with the insights from the Cynefin farmework, developed by Dave Snowden. Recent evolution of this framework include “Entanglement“, liminality and the great…

  walterstiers

  2022-08-03

  #Cynefin, #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Design Thinking, Information Technology, Neurobiology/psychology, Policy, Science, Social-Technical, Uncategorized

  #ActiveInference, #Cynefin, #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #Sensemaking, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty, #Wicked

• Enhancing human agency through redress in Artificial Intelligence Systems

  […] automation of workflows enabled by AI systems could even go as far as to challenge individual agency, autonomy and active mediation. It is paramount to not only scientifically but also empirically assess new ways to enable active human agency. In terms of policy, […] users lack the means and tools to exercise this agency in the…

  walterstiers

  2022-06-09

  AI, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Science, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #Wicked