In this episode of Cyber Security Inside What That Means, Camille jumps into the conversation on cybernetics with Genevieve Bell. For International Women’s Day, the podcast is honored to have Genevieve as a guest, who is accomplished, thoughtful, and influential. Genevieve Bell is Director of 3A Institute, Sr. Fellow at Intel, Director of School of Cybernetics, and Distinguished Professor at Australian National University.
The conversation covers:
What cybernetic technology is, the history of it, and what is happening with it and artificial intelligence today.
How computer science is meeting climate change, privacy, and social sciences in the field of cybernetics.
How cybernetic technology is intricately connected with history and changing perceptions of privacy and control.
What sustainability looks like in cybernetics and cyber security.
...and more. Don’t miss it!
The views and opinions expressed are those of the guests and author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Intel Corporation.
Here are some key takeaways:
Cybernetics has been around for decades - over 80 years. It may sound familiar because of science fiction. However, it began as science fact around World War II. It was created to help manage the problem of control and communication in machines and humans.
The group of people who make decisions and study humanity were worried about what technology could do in a destructive way. Cybernetics was supposed to be a framework for how we would manage technology and would create a critical infrastructure.
As we have moved into the 21st century, the way we think about control has changed. Cybernetics is about understanding how things flow and ensuring an ability to stop it from unfolding if it looks like we need to.
Technology is already in our bodies - vaccines are a good example of this. Again, the key thing in cybernetics is control and the ability to have control over your own body and decisions. Because of how history has unfolded and prejudice has played a role, there are people who have less control - we need to ensure that consent is a part of the process, but also asking questions about who is benefitting from the technology.
Each time we develop technology and computer systems to make things more efficient or convenient or to better do specific tasks, we have to look at every angle. How do self-driving cars impact pedestrian safety? And how does that impact people with physical disabilities trying to cross the street more slowly?
Surveillance and data collection are a huge part of both AI and cybernetics. Often, surveillance can be good, such as when we surveil wildlife populations to ensure they are healthy, or our water systems to ensure everything is working properly. A different approach needs to be taken with humans. Many large companies have made decisions about what technology they should or shouldn’t be using because they are waiting on policy or legislation or settings.
Because how people think about and manage privacy has changed over time and will continue to change, designing technology and AI systems for privacy is very difficult. People don’t just worry about their personal data and cyber threats, they also worry about what judgements will be made about them with that data.
Data is always based on what you have done in the past, which worries some researchers. This means that it is less likely for you to see something outside of the frame of reference you already have, which might limit your ability to grow and change and connect with others.
Sustainability plays a large role in cybernetics in a few ways. The first is knowledge, and making sure that many people have that knowledge and a role in the development of the technology in the community it is being used in. Then it is sustainable over time in a healthy way.
But it is also about climate change and environmental impacts. We have to ensure that technology is not contributing to the environmental problem.
Some interesting quotes from today’s episode:
“It’s a term that kind of noodled around in science fiction for a long time. The reason we got it in science fiction, however, is it started in science fact.” - Genevieve Bell
“And coming out of World War II, it was really clear that computers weren’t just going to be big machines that crunch numbers to aim guns. They were going to be objects that could sit inside of decision-making frameworks and industry and scientific discovery, and potentially even inside people’s homes.” - Genevieve Bell
“It lets you think about systems. It’s a systems level approach that argues pretty persuasively that you can’t think about technology without thinking about humans and the environment.” - Genevieve Bell
“Think about the ways in which certain bodies have had work done to them without their consent. And you start to realize that the notion about the most recent nanotechnologies over various forms of computational technologies in our bodies are actually part of a much longer legacy where those questions are already highly charged.” - Genevieve Bell
“What information is being collected? Who has access to it? What sense is being made of it? How is that sense-making being used for further determinations?” - Genevieve Bell
“Whether that’s the lightweight things that sit inside Netflix, or inside dating apps, or inside Amazon, which is really about determining who you are and what you’d like in order to work out what you might like next. So think about that, and use the word ‘desire…’ How do we help satisfy your desires for things or people or stuff.” - Genevieve Bell
“Privacy is a relatively new term, and our notions about what is private and what isn’t are incredibly fungible and have changed remarkably, even over the arc of our lifetimes. And I imagine it will continue to do so.” - Genevieve Bell
“One of the problems with the way data is often mobilized is that what it does is that the choices you are given at any kind of moment in a recommendation engine, for example, are based on what you’ve already done. So it’s always based on the past. And one of the things that happens there is that you can then get locked into who you’ve been and limit your possibility of growing, changing, being something different.” - Genevieve Bell