Keynote Speakers
John Boardman (Opening Plenary)
School of Systems and Enterprises,
Stevens Institute of Technology, USA
Abstract
The Primacy of Paradox
Among all the revolutions in the history of mankind, perhaps none has been so purposive, ruthless, relatively bloodless and largely unnoticeable as that of science. Wresting power from prophets, priests and kings, science has made accessible to all the opportunity to understand, reason, learn, discover and, most importantly, aspire to a better way of life.
Few revolutions have been both wrought and secured by the same agents, the prime exception being that of the American Revolution. Would science be undergoing this kind of a revolution nowdays while unchaining itself from the centrality of reductionist thinking? With Complexity Science becaming its courtier - The Science King embraces holistic thinking when confronted by the non-linearities, unintended consequences, and dynamic interactions that complex systems reveal. With this - more confusion and uncertainty await the onward progress of science. .
This presentation seeks to place the phenomenon of paradox at the center of new scientific thinking. Illustrations from American Revolutionary history through to IBM’s renaissance will be used to introduce categorize and affirm the primacy of paradox as both a roadblock to conventional wisdom and a portal to breakthrough thinking. A vision will be cast to engage the servants of The Science King to become 21st Century revolutionaries - ready to confront a planet in peril, a world at war, and a global citizenry that desires both the Lexus and the olive tree.
Biography
Dr. Boardman’s previous academic appointments have taken him from the University of Liverpool, through Brighton Polytechnic and Georgia Institute of Technology to the University of Portsmouth, which he joined in 1990 as GEC Marconi Professor of Systems Engineering and founding Director of the School of Systems Engineering. In 1994 he became founding Dean of the College of Technology at the University of Portsmouth. He has over 60 refereed publications to his credit, a textbook published by Prentice Hall: ‘Introduction to Systems Engineering’, and a recent book “Systems Thinking: coping with 21st Century challenges” by Taylor & Francis. His seminal work on systemigrams, a graphical notation for capturing strategic intent in extended enterprises, has been recognized internationally. He founded a thriving systems and management consultancy – John Boardman Associates Ltd. in the UK - through which he has consulted to Schlumberger, GEC Marconi, the Commission of European Communities, Rolls-Royce, and the BBC. Dr. Boardman is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, and Fellow of INCOSE.
School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh, SCOTLAND
Abstract
Specknet Infrastructure for Cyber-Physical SystemsIn an iconic sequence in the 1930’s film “Modern Times” – a commentary on the banality and boredom of life on an industrial production line, Charlie Chaplin is seen working on a conveyer belt, trapped in an endless loop of repetitive actions. In more recent times, the human on the conveyer belt has been replaced by robots corralled in their own pens, and their interaction with the human is a distant one, if at all. The vision of the future is altogether different: robots and humans living cheek by jowl and interacting as part of a wider Cyber-Physical System. The talk will explore the fabric of such as a system based on specknets: wireless sensors on the human for real-time motion capture is networked wirelessly with humanoid robots to provide unprecedented levels of flexibility and freedom in real-time interactions. The resulting “physical avatar” acts as a physical presence, either near or afar, taking the place of the human operator for purposes of communication, exploration and object manipulation in collaboration with other such robots or humans. An in-built online learning and classification system allows motions of a human operator to be learned by the robot. We discuss whether everyday use of a motion-capture physical avatar may eventually provide enough training data to adequately prepare robots for autonomous operation. The talk will be interspersed with videos of the implementation of the infrastructure.
Biography
DK Arvind is a Reader in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom, and CITRIS Visiting Professor at the University of California, at Berkeley (2007-11). He was previously for four years a Research Scientist in the School of Computer Science, Carnegie-Mellon
University, Pittsburgh, USA. He is the founder Director and Principal Investigator of the
Research Consortium in Speckled Computing (www.specknet.org) – a multidisciplinary
grouping of computer scientists, electronic engineers, electrochemists and physicists
drawn from five universities, to research the next generation of miniature wireless sensor networks. The Consortium has attracted research funding in the excess of £5.2 Million (~US$ 10 million) (2004-10) from the Scottish Funding Council, and the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (equivalent of the National Science Foundation in the US). In the past his research has been funded by EPSRC, US Office of Naval Research, Scottish Enterprise/Cadence Design Systems, Sharp, Hitachi, Panasonic/Mastushita, Agilent, ARM and SUN Microsystems. His research interests include the design, analysis and integration of miniature networked embedded systems which combine sensing, processing and wireless networking capabilities.
Alex Jadad (Closing Plenary)
Canada Research Chair in eHealth Innovation
Abstract
Humanodes in a global superorganism: Are we entering the dawn of the post-human era?
Thanks to prodigious levels of technological progress, by the early portion of the 21st century, humans have reached a crucial stage in their evolutionary path.
The outlook includes a wide spectrum of possibilities for the future of the species. This spectrum has two groups, the Apocalyptics and the Transhumanists, at its extremes. Both include very prominent thinkers who claim to have strong evidence to support their views for the emergence of a world without humans within few generations.
The Apocalyptics see humans as a megalomaniac species destined to self-destruct as a result of selfish choices fed by lack of foresight and courage.
The Trans-humanists believe that humans in their traditional organic form are just a transitional phase along their evolutionary path towards a post-human era. They believe that humans soon will be able to create intelligent machines with which they could fully blend.
The future, however, is well known for its ability to defy predictions.
Maybe there are more exciting scenarios in store for the human species.
Maybe, once again, humans will manage to survive against all odds, at least for a little longer than expected.
Maybe, one day, humans will use the massive levels of interconnectivity that began so early in the 21st century to develop a global network of augmented human minds, willing to promote their mutual enlightenment and secure their collective survival, together, as a species.
Maybe we are doomed.
Maybe we are not.
Biography
Dr. Jadad’s mission is to help improve health and wellness for all, thorough information and communication technologies (ICTs).
His research and innovation work focuses on virtual tools to support the encounter between the public and the health system (with emphasis on self-management of chronic conditions); interactive tools to promote knowledge translation and mentorship of health professionals and the public; and online resources to support social networks, to respond to major public health threats (e.g., chronic conditions, pandemics), to support international collaboration, and to enable the public (particularly young people) to shape the health system and society.
In 2000, Alex joined the University of Toronto, where he led the creation of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, a setting designed as a simulator of the future, to study and optimize the use of ICTs before their widespread introduction into the health system and society at large. He is also spearheading the development of the Global eHealth and eWellness Network Initiative (GENI, pronounced as “genie”), a unique group of individuals, organizations, tools and facilities working in harmony to promote research, development, education, policy, funding, recognition and commercialization activities related to the uses of ICTs to promote optimal levels of health and wellness, worldwide.
He leads the People, Health equity and Innovation (PHI) Group, which focuses on innovative efforts to level the playing field for disadvantaged members of society, with emphasis on youth leadership development, supportive care (for people with chronic conditions, terminal illnesses or advanced age) and multi-cultural issues.
Dr. Jadad has received numerous awards, including a 'National Health Research Scholars Award', by Health Canada (1997), one of 'Canada's Top 40 Under 40' awards (1998), a 'Premier's Research Excellence Award' (1999), the New Pioneers Award in Science and Technology (2002). In 2001 and 2002, he was featured by Time Magazine as one of the new Canadians who will shape the country in the 21st century, and as one of the leading medical researchers in the country. In 2005, he was selected by the Top 40 Under 40 alumni as one of “The Best of the Best” for achievements in Health and Science.
He just published his first non-medical book (fifth in total), entitled Unlearning*, a guided tour through the evolution of the human mind, which ends with a view of the greatest challenges humans face at the dawn of the 21st century, and his own obituary.
MIT Media Lab and Stevens Institute of Technology, United States
Banquet Keynote
Abstract
Now that we are virtually swimming in the information age, human beings are increasingly characterized as information processors, engaged in complex rituals of information exchange. Many cultural leaders, from science fiction authors to post-humanist anthropologists, have likened civilization to a vast hive of functions, procedures and living data-bases.Such a vision was once considered a cynical view of humanity, only suitable for character's such as Mustapha Mond, the sinister world controller in Aldous Huxley's novel, Brave New World. But due to a large, grassroots environmental movement, highlighted by such efforts as Rachel Carson's book, Silent Spring, and more recently, the Kyoto Protocols, we have seen this cyborglike visage of humanity cast in a new light: our entire planet is helplessly drawn into the industrial order and we need to come to terms with the situation or suffer the gradual dissolution of our environmental base. Our gorgeous heritage of flora, fauna, icebergs and water cycles is on the line. It may no longer be dehumanizing to speak of our species in systems terms, but perhaps a critical cultural shift for coping with the machines we have unleashed – especially if the tools of systems thinking are shared equally by all. An education in network and systems thinking might even be considered a necessary component of democratic feedback, perhaps even a human right.
Educators and media artists like myself have a major paradigm shift to catalyze. Sharing systems thinking with the world, perhaps even inventing new kinds of cultural meta-systems as agents of a systems culture, is not a trivial task. A number of challenges and questions come to mind:
• How do we upgrade our ancient rituals of information-processing – those customs currently preserved in the worlds of art, religion and education – in light of the almost manic race to capitalize on the digitization, virtualization and internationalization of our culture, objects and communications?
• What metaphors for surviving exponential change and growth can we introduce which haven't already been addressed by Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, Stanley Kubrick in A Clockwork Orange, or Hayao Miyazake in his anime feature, Spirited Away? What can we say after Curt Cobain's acid commentary on media overload, "Here we are now, Entertain us, I feel stupid and contagious"?
In this talk I'd like to share some of my own efforts to promote a systems culture, to address what might be described as our emerging, planetwide social cyborg. These began with experiments in information- sharing rituals in Boston and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the development of a new system of ethics called Bionic Codes. Bionic Codes, in turn, have been cultivated into a pop, biomorphic network language, Zoacodes, which are a kind of meta-system for an online media world, Nervepool.net. Much of the Nervepool project involves an increasingly organic characterization of culture and information systems. In my talk I will share a variety of Nervepool media, including the premiere of a new themesong for the Nervepool.
Biography
One of the first instructors and media artists at MIT's Media Lab, Ebon Fisher has been exploring the ethics and rituals of technology usage since the 1980s. Wired Magazine dubbed him "Mr. Meme" for his viral approach to art and he has been lauded as one of the "Visionaries of the New Millennium" by Java Magazine. Drawn to both the formal and functional properties of nerves and networks, Fisher's work has followed a trajectory from a rock band called Nerve Circle to information rituals in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to his weblike media creation, Nervepool.net. Fisher spent three years developing a new media arts program at the University of Iowa called Digital Worlds and became the 2005 Marjorie Rankin Scholar-in-Residence at Drexel University in Philadelphia. His Bionic Codes project has been presented online by the Guggenheim Museum for over a decade and his works have been presented on television numerous times to over 10 million viewers, including a presentation on Fuji Television in Japan. His media creations have been discussed in Newsweek, Domus, Die Zeit, Flash Art International, the Drama Review and several major art history books. His Zoacodes have been projected in numerous theatrical and outdoor venues, including Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, PS1/MoMA and a large rave with DJ Ritchie Hawtin (AKA Plastikman). Fisher received a Masters of Science in Visual Studies from MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies. He currently teaches courses in transmedia and biophilia in the College of Arts & Letters at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ.South Carolina State University, United States
Abstract
Beyond Artificial Intelligence, toward Engineered PsychologyArtificial intelligence started with exploring concept of representation of real world in a database of an artificial system such as robot or expert system. The metaphor for artificial intelligence was a computer program. Many believed that AI-related computer programs should be written in specific programming language such as LISP or Prolog.
That view changed with approach that representations and real world should have reality check mechanism that will interface the real world. The view shifted toward need of a body that will carry out sensors for a real time interaction. So-called embodied AI introduces that agents rather than programs should be metaphor for Artificial Intelligence. What is important is the agent-environment interaction, an intelligent behavior that will prove the representations.
In this presentation we argue that it is time that we should pursue beyond the concept of AI. It is known in biology that limbic system includes both memory and emotions. So the concept such as motivations, emotions, and curiosity, among others should be included in agents. In short metaphors for AI should be personalities rather than agents. Not just behavioral environment, the genetic environment should be included in our theories of intelligent beings. In this keynote we will present a coherent theory of Consequence Driven Systems toward the Engineered Psychology part of IT revolution.
Biography
Dr Bozinovski obtained his degrees from University of Zagreb, Croatia.
His extended education and research includes work for IBM in Bayreuth, Germany, Adaptive Networks Group of the COINS department, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Japan , and Robocup team of Behavior Engineering Group of the German Institute for Information technologies (GMD) in Germany,. His academic career as professor started at University Sts Cyril and Methodius, in Skopje, Macedonia. Currently he is Associate Professor of Computer Science at South Carolina State University.
IMST GmbH, Germany
Abstract
The Era of Rationality?
In less than 400 years rationality took us from witch burning to the moon. Current societal developments suggest that it may take much less time to send us back to where we came from. Our languages (natural and scientific) have become vague, blurred, ambiguous and inconsistent; what we say is increasingly no longer what we mean or what corresponds to experience and other kinds of knowledge. Often it has no meaning at all any more. In this carnival of words our intentions are valued according to the degree they exceed the possible and knowable, while their correlation with reality and common sense is considered a pre-post-modern relict. When the problem is made the solution and the paradox a methodology we indeed feel like kids in a candy store. The difference is that they understand that it is a dream…
This presentation tries to show that ‘complexity’ and ‘emergence’ are no objects of natural science but rather the fabric of mental ordering schemes shining through the appearances when we ask questions that have no answers; not because the answers are too difficult, but because the questions have no meaning whatsoever. In late 18th century words (I. Kant) the definition of complexity reads:
'The particular fate of human reason is in the kind of its knowledge: that it is molested by questions it can neither reject, are they put forward by the nature of reason itself , nor answer; because they exceed all capacity of human reason.'
Biography
Heinz Luediger received his degree in telecommunication engineering in 1979. In 1980 he joined Siemens AG to work on antennae design and microwave frontends. From 1985 to 1990 he was responsible for the definition and execution of the electrical test campaign of the first European remote sensing satellite/payload (ERS1) with the project prime contractor EADS. Mr Luediger then joined the Ericsson Mobilfunk GmbH product management team supporting the German D2 network operator in the effort to dimension, configure and install their GSM network. Moving to IMST in 1996, he coordinated the European research projects MEDIAN and whyless.com [whyless.org]. Currently he is involved in the EU project PULSERS. His interest in interrelations between technology and society developed when roaming between industry and academia.