Recording of my talk at #JavaZone on #sociotechnical systems and #agile is available at https://vimeo.com/861989662

AUTOMATION. Here's an interesting Illichian commentary about artificial intelligence and public concerns about the automation of work. Hasn't managerialism been making jobs more formulaic, mechanical, and predictable? Has this not created "disabling professions" full of "thoughtless automaticity?" Why is AI-automation of office work considered a dangerous departure instead of a continuation of the existing trend?

Link: https://open.substack.com/pub/theconvivialsociety/p/render-unto-the-machine?r=7ecv4&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

#SocioTechnical #AI #technology #automation

Did I ever make an #introduction? I'm Steven. By training I'm a general topologist, but these days I'm just as involved in advancing the #sociotechnical infrastructure of academic #mathematics, both research and instruction. I make #puzzles and #games, and especially enjoy turning mathematics research into content suitable for general audiences.

Soooo, I'm trying something new 😅 I'm writing a newsletter!

It's called The Knowledge Worker's Toolkit" (KWT).

It's about the #systemsthinking / #knowledgework / #sociotechnical topics pictured below.

https://kwt.stuttaford.me

Please subscribe, and please share with your people!

Tech companies invest millions on their technical infrastructure.

Very little is invested in building their sociotechnical infrastructure.

This is sad because the problems they tackle are sociotechnical in nature.

Technical solutions don't work for sociotechnical problems.

#AI #ML #technology #sociotechnical

“A more complete TCP/IP stack” and “the ✌️lifecycle✌️of hardware”

Slides from a seriously funny talk by @nasser at the @causalislands conference on Future of Computing. (Edited video coming soon)

#technology #computing #sustainability #sociotechnical #anarchism #anticapitalism

It's been a while since I've done an #Introduction #FollowFriday #TwitterMigration post, where I use my large follower count to more closely connect the #Fediverse :fediverse:

Please meet:

@lucianofloridi is a #Professor and #Academic in #STS #science and #technology studies, where he researches #privacy, #agency etc. One of his favourite papers of mine is where he casts "privacy as friction" - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-006-0001-7

@Mer__edith is President of @signalapp, formerly of @ainowinstitute@twitter.com, founded with @Katecrawford and #NYU

@lessig is also a hero of mine - a #Professor, #lawyer and political activist, proponent of #CreativeCommons licensing, and #FOSS #OpenSource advocate 🙇

@jgcarpenter is a #researcher and #scholar of #robotics #HCI and the relationships humans have with machines (check her out on the latest ep of @algfutures podcast!)

The Free Software Foundation is new to #Mastodon at @fsf - and they advocate for #FOSS, #FLOSS and #Opensource.

@PERN is #Platform Economies #Research Network, and inquires into #STS and #sociotechnical systems - they have a talk coming up soon from @xiaochang@twitter.com from #Stanford:

https://platformeconomies.net/salon-items/theres-no-data-like-more-data-automatic-speech-recognition-and-algorithmic-culture/

That's all for tonight, don't forget to post your own #ConnectionList ❤️

My partner found a 1960s ceramic percolator, unused and in its box, from a company (Pifco) that evolved into Russell Hobbs. Great coffee, but look at the instructions: fully repairable, with a range of spare parts in the box. That’s how to design and sell ‘high tech’ consumer goods!

#sociotechnical #sts #repair #maintenance

“Most of what we do in software is change it. And when you consider changing the software, then you've got the whole sociotechnical system of the team, the product org, your entire company... When changing software, it becomes a social project to get a change into the system.” -@jessitron
#SystemsThinking #SoftwareDevelopment #sociotechnical

From: @newcrafts
https://mastodon.social/@newcrafts/110067666150351613

👀 I'm giving a free ticket away to #KubeConEU if you can offer a new-to-me #sociotechnical solution to increase #belonging in #OpenSource communities. Learn more on my LinkedIn🎟️
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7043609039171133441/ #kubecon #kubecon2023

#Current23 is the next generation of #KafkaSummit, so expect some #apacheKafka talks. But there's room for everyone! #apacheDruid, #apacheFlink, #ETL, #dataMesh, #machineLearning, #IoT, #databases...

We have room for talks on the unique #devops challenges of monitoring and managing any of these systems; talks on #sociotechnical impact of rearchitecting your business for streaming; #streaming in academia; and just plain fun and geeky sessions.

The list goes on and on!

"When people are truly equal, they don't have to have the same values"
-Merrelyn Emery, 2023
#OpenSystems #SocioTechnical

And for senior leadership in organisations, you have to stop saying "That's IT, the techies sort that out". IT is just another resource you have to achieve your organisational aims, like people, buildings, IP etc. YOU have to take responsibility for technology just as you would for other critical resources, so make sure the you are part of the conversation about security and usability, and taking responsibility for the decisions made about securing your data and systems. You don't need to be technical to make those decisions, you need to take advice from specialists, weigh up the pros and cons, and make an informed decision in the interests of your organisation.

#cyber #management #sociotechnical

I'm fortunate to be able to attend Merrelyn Emery's probably last #OpenSystems course in Canberra Australia and this slide shows how fundamental that theory is.
#SocioTechnical #epistomology

🌶 Hot take:
The only organisational structure proven to truely enable learning, collaboration, empowerment, trust and belonging are the one that is also the only jointly optimised #SocioTechnical system, namely DP2/self-managing teams.

Wonder what makes a Search Conference so different from the seemingly similar Future Search? The latter claims to extend the former, but have left out core parts to make it suit a terrible individualiatic and non-systemic thinking. Here's a comparison by M Emery.
#OpenSystems #SocioTechnical

The current focus on LLM chatbot product design / user experience / business model / 'intelligence' detracts from geopolitical questions:

2/2] (Setting aside their obvious potential for spreading misinformation at scale) how useful are LLMs for security agencies in terms of strategy / game theory?

#geopolitical #sociotechnical #chatgpt #infosec

The current focus on LLM chatbot product design / user experience / business model / 'intelligence' detracts from geopolitical questions:

1/2] If these are the AI personalities we're seeing from LLMs trained on datasets used by US tech companies, what personalities are emerging from LLMs trained on datasets developed in more 'restrictive' political contexts?

#geopolitical #sociotechnical #chatgpt #infosec

In #SystemsThinking associated with scientific pluralism, the treatments of world theories as (i) analytic or synthetic have generally received more attention than (ii) dispersive or integrative.

https://coevolving.com/blogs/index.php/archive/world-theories-as-analytic-deductive-dispersive-integrative/

#SocioTechnical #SocioEcological #SystemsTheory

Are you looking for ways to decrease the cost of change of your software while having a healthy and open culture? @joaorosa will explore these and other topics in the Intentional Architecture workshop in Greece. 🇬🇷

Few spots available. ➡️ https://www.eventbrite.com/e/intentional-architecture-tickets-497538991517?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

#workshop #software #sociotechnical