Future Information Society, The: Social And Technological Problems

Social and Technological Problems

Wolfgang Hofkirchner, Mark Burgin

• Publisher: WSPC
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9789813108981
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Computer Science

-->

This book is the first volume of a two-volume edition based on the International Society for Information Studies Summit Vienna 2015 on "The Information Society at the Crossroads. Response and Responsibility of the Sciences of Information" (see summit.is4is.org).

The book represents a trans-disciplinary endeavor of the leading experts in the field of information studies posing the question for a better society, in which social and technological innovations help make information key to the flourishing of humanity and dispense with the bleak view of the dark side of information society.

It is aimed at readers that conduct research into any aspect of information, information society and information technology, who develop or implement social or technological applications. It is also for those who have an interest in participating in setting the goals for sciences of information and social applications of technological achievements and scientific results.

-->
-->0 Readership: Researchers in aspects of information. -->
Information Society, Technology, Intelligence, Computation, Cognition, Robot, Internet, Control, Education0

Chapter 1

Introduction: Sociology of Information Processes and the Development of Society

Mark Burgin^*,§ and Wolfgang Hofkirchner^†,‡,¶

^*University of California, Los Angeles
405 Hilgard Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA
^†Institute of Design and Technology Assessment
Vienna University of Technology
Argentinierstraße 6, 1040 Vienna, Austria
^‡Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science
Paulanergasse 13, 1040 Vienna, Austria
^§[email protected]
^¶[email protected]

The information age is the age of the information societies, into which industrialized societies are gradually transforming under the influence of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), in the same way as the industrial age is the age of industrial societies, into which agricultural societies had been and are still transforming worldwide. However, a full-fledged development of science is still in need to catch up with the actual societal and technological development. The accelerated technological development of the modern society is not accompanied by an equally rapid growth in scientific insight, let alone foresight, into the impact of technology on the levels of society other than that of technological organization. Attempts to observe and understand the basic nature of these changes are still going on. The public use of the notion of “information society” has been reduced to denoting a society in which applications of modern ICTs are widely spread in order to facilitate the handling of the phenomenon commonly called “information”. A scientific conceptualization of this transformation has not had time to develop. There is still no discipline that deserves the name “science of the information society” or “science of information”.

That lag of science behind society and technology is particularly critical, since actual techno-social developments have been leading to aggravating ambiguities. On the one hand, the study and the engineering of information processes have been spreading and diversifying, while diffusing throughout the disciplines. As a result, there is a rich body of knowledge about diverse aspects of information; and in many cases valuable findings have been made. However, on the other hand, more often than not, information studies are not focused on contributing to the urgent needs of civilization in crisis, while research and development are undertaken to meet short-sighted economic concerns, one-sided military and political pursuits, and self-centered cultural interests being an obstacle to thinking big and hindering the social development of society. Thus, diversity still outbalances unity instead of providing the basis for information studies to become a science of information in its own right. It is vital to transform information studies into the science of information [Hofkirchner 2013]. A methodological and theoretical base for such a transformation is provided by the general theory of information, which suggests a way for a synthesized understanding of information phenomena and information processes unifying all diverse theoretical approaches and developing mathematical tools for investigation of information processes in all spheres of reality – in nature, society, human organisms and technical systems [Burgin 2010].

The goal of overcoming these obstacles was the main rationale for holding the Summit of the International Society for Information Studies on “The Information Society at the Crossroads – Response and Responsibility of the Sciences of Information” in Vienna in June 2015. This goal is reflected in the following statement (Call for Participation – bold style removed, M.B. and W.H.):

The information society has come with a promise – the promise, with the help of technology, to restore information as a commons: generated and utilised by everyone; for the benefit of every single person and all humanity; unfettered, empowering the people, truthful and reasonable, enabling constructive ways of living and a proper understanding of the environment.

The promise has not yet proven true. Instead, we face trends towards the commercialisation and commoditisation of all information; towards the totalization of surveillance and the extension of the battlefield to civil society through information warfare; towards disinformation overflow; towards a collapse of the technological civilisation itself as a consequence of the vulnerability of information networks and, in the most general terms, as a consequence of ignorance of the fundamental information processes at work not only in natural systems but also in social and artificial systems.

The social and technological innovations that are intended to boost cognition, communication and co-operation are ambiguous: their potential to advance information commons is exploited for purposes of self-aggrandisement rather than concern for the overarching communities in which every human self is embedded from the family to world society. Tools – computer and other – are made for profit, power or predominance; the goal of a flourishing and thriving of humanity as a whole takes a distant second place, if it runs at all.

Thus, the information society has reached a crossroads: without significant change, business as usual can even accelerate its breakdown. A breakthrough to a global, sustainable information society must establish an information commons as a cornerstone of a programme for coping with the challenges of the information age.

In order to set the course for the future development of the information society, the Summit provided beneficial conditions for the researchers involved in information studies to present and discuss the obtained results and created ideas developing the field of social and technological innovations based upon findings in information theory and methodology, in information society, and in information technology. Researchers working in the area of the fundamental research and exploring the nature of information processes in all realms of the real world also presented and discussed their results and ideas. Thus, we can elucidate three basic areas of information studies:

•Sociological information studies concentrate on the impact of the information sciences on society questioning how to “improve the design and implementation of social and technological applications for the advancement of a viable information society and individual autonomy.”

•Methodological information studies focus on the foundations of the sciences of information questioning how to “improve the concepts we use for the study of information at all levels, from natural information processes to the information society and information technology, such that they open new vistas that allow for improved applications.”

•Theoretical information studies develop information theories exploring the essence of information and regularities of information processes.

This book contains results and ideas of the selected Summit speakers and other leading experts in the first area dealing with problems of social issues of information processes, for the most part either from a critical perspective or in a pro-active design stance. Although the editors do not agree with some of these ideas and statements, they believe that it is necessary to provide a possibility for a free exchange of information and constructive discussion of different ideas and approaches in science. Violation of this ethical principle hinders the development of science.

Social information processes take place in any subdomain of society, that is, in the cultural, political, and economic sphere or subsystem as well as in that sector that provides the environmental basis of society and, last not least, in that sector that the provides the technological infrastructure of society. In any of these areas social information manifests itself in the cognitive capabilities of any social actor, in communicative capabilities of coupled cognitive social actors, and in the co-operative capability of entangled communicative social actors constituting a social entity on a higher level of organization.

Problems occur when social information processes are hampered due to social friction. The concept “social friction” was used at the beginning of the 20^th century [Chapman 1912] and then was revitalized at the end of the 20^th century [cf., for example, Nolen-Hoeksema et al. 1997; Mander 1998] becoming very popular in the 21^st century [cf., for example, McGowan 2003; Heylighen 2007].

Being a fundamental aspect of everyday life, social friction is a negative process due to the state of co-operation where the pursuit of one actor’s goals hinders the pursuit of other actors’ goals and reduces the productivity and efficiency of the overall outcome. Such a state trickles down the ladder to communication and inhibits cognition. As a result, many problems of social information processes are caused by social friction, which decreases synergy of social organizations and thus, can be treated as negative synergy. While synergy is a feature of a multicomponent system to be able to achieve higher results than the simple combination of the results of its components, friction is the trait that hinders achievement of higher results. It is interesting that in business practice, synergy is represented by the expression “1 + 1 = 3”, which describes that the “sum” of two systems or processes is greater than what they could achieve on their own [cf., for example, Tufte 1990; Angier 2015].

In spite of the hopes expressed by some researchers [cf., for example, Floridi 2007], ICTs alone do not have the potential of establishing a “frictionless” medium for functioning of social information. Even more, ICTs can even cause intensification of existing frictions or might instigate new frictions. The majority of social problems cannot be solved by the development of technical means alone. Without appropriate social organization and psychological growth of separate individuals and society as a whole, it is impossible to decrease social friction. Only interplay of social and technological changes can achieve this goal. First, it is necessary to accomplish the reconfiguration of relations between social actors in such a way that synergy grows up, while frictions are decreased. Second, it is necessary to base the development of ICTs on an efficient information theory, which takes into account social factors. Third, the redesigned and remodeled ICTs have to support unfettered information processes. Thus, it is vital not only to have and utilize diverse ICTs but also to know how to efficiently use them. Acquisition of this knowledge is the main goal of the sociological information studies presented in this book.

The first part of the book – From Nature to the Organization of Society – contains contributions to the study of information that aim at the creation of a grand social theory. They span the panorama from natural evolution to the specifics of social evolution and the role technology can play for reducing the frictions of information processes (chapters 2 to 7).

The second part – Designing the Future – continues with visions of how technology can be shaped to enable humanity to enter a new stage of its development by minimizing social frictions. Contributions start with a new framing for Technology Assessment, focus on co-operation of human collective intelligence that conceptualizes the Internet as Global Brain for a new community of the world citizens and touch innovations, learning and methods of how to take advantage of the rise in available information (chapters 8 to 15).

The last cluster of contributions – Meaningful Technology? – is devoted to concrete areas of frictions in particular social and technological fields. The contributions in the third part of the book analyze not only why those frictions hamper the development of society but demonstrate also approaches to overcoming those frictions. The range is from prejudices against cultural groups via the orientation of media coverage via the fallback of the European Union and its political implications via surveillance and military technology, robots and A.I., to health care technology (chapters 16 to 28).

References

Angier, M. (2015). One plus one equals three? http://www.smithfam.com/news2/synergy.html

Burgin, M. (2010). Theory of Information: Fundamentality, Diversity and Unification, World Scientific, New York/London/Singapore

Call for Participation, http://summit.is4is.org/calls/call-for-participation

Chapman, S. J. (1912). Political Economy, Williams and Norgate, London

Floridi, L. (2007). A look into the future impact of ICTs on our lives, The Information Society, 23/1, 59-64

Heylighen, F. (2007). Accelerating Socio-Technological Evolution, in: Modelski, G., Devezas, T., and Thompson, W. (eds.), Globalization as an Evolutionary Process – Modeling Global Change, Routledge, London, 286-335

Hofkirchner, W. (2001). Emergent Information, World Scientific, New York/London/Singapore

Mander, M. S. (Ed.) (1998). Framing Friction: Media and Social Conflict, University of Illinois Press, Urbana

McGowan, D. (2003). From Social Friction to Social Meaning: What Expressive Uses of Code Tell Us About Free Speech, Minnesota Public Law Research Paper No. 03-4

Nolen-Hoeksema, S., McBride, A., and Larson, J. (1997). Rumination and psychological distress among bereaved partners, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., 72(4), 855-862

Tufte, E. R. (1990). Envisioning Information, Graphics Press, Cheshire, CT

Part I

From Nature to the Organization of Society

Chapter 2

Information for a Global Sustainable Information Society

Wolfgang Hofkirchner

Institute of Design and Technology Assessment
Vienna University of Technology
Argentinierstraße 6, 1040 Vienna, Austria
[email protected]

Starting point is the résumé of a systems theoretical analysis of the information age as an age of global challenges. Global challenges indicate a crisis in the evolution of humanity’s social systems. They indicate a Great Bifurcation, one trajectory of which would signify another Great Transformation – a transformation into a Global Sustainable Information Society (GSIS). Such a social formation would be characterised by three properties that are concretisations of generic properties characteristic of any complex system. One of those properties refers to the information generation capacities of the agents of world society in statu nascendi. In order to promote the advent of such a social suprasystem, there are historical-concrete requirements to be met on each ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Series Editors
• Title
• Copyright
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Contents
• 1. Introduction: Sociology of Information Processes and the Development of Society
• Part I. From Nature to the Organization of Society
• Part II. Designing the Future
• Part III. Meaningful Technology?