My research has focused on
issues in biomimetic IT design, i.e. IT designed with support from
models
of living and complex systems. Biological approaches to IT design
are blooming these years and I am convinced that we are one
the verge on completely new ways of understanding, creating and
using
IT. My Ph.D. project is an investigation into this new field and
comprises analyses of the historical and scientific roots of the
present occupation with biological models, perspectives for the biological
approach in relation to design, use and conception of IT, investigations
of biomimetic IT systems and much more.
However before I fixed my project
on biomimetic IT design I had to walk a curved
path. After
five years of strictly philosophical education I began
my Ph.D. project by studying biological
theories of cognition
of relevance for the design of better IT interfaces.
However convinced of the profound
truth of interactivist theories on complexity,
self-organization and adaptivity, as developed by my co-supervisors
Prof. Mark
Bickhard and Ph.D. Wayne
Christensen,
I started focusing on new ways of designing IT to meet growing demands
for flexibility, robustness and adequate services.
Biomimetic Ambient Intelligence
I am investigating to which
extend we can apply a biologically inspired approach on the design
of Ambient Intelligence (AmbI).
I prefer the notion of AmbI since it covers the
interesting elements by future IT: 1) In opposition to Pervasive
or Ubiquitous
Computing it denotes the functionality – intelligent assistance – and
not some means to obtain it, while
still capturing the highly distributed nature of IT. 2) ‘Ambient’ indicates
the ‘present at hand but non-intruding’ behavior
we seek from an optimally functioning technology captured under
the slogan ‘If there is to be computers everywhere they’d
better get out of the way’. 3) ‘Intelligence’ not
only concerns the behavior of the technology but intrinsic
characteristics of recursively adaptive systems, i.e. their
structural and functional
development and organization.
Efforts in the biomimetic direction are
currently being pursued and we will see a lot of new types of
technology in
the decades to come. But it cannot happen successfully without investigating
a range of central topics concerning technology and design.
We will have to deal with some very interesting questions,
some of which I will sketch here.
Change of perspective
To
follow the possibilities that a biomimetic approach offers will take
a change of perspective both within IT research and -
of equal importance - a new view on assisting technology
from the users. In relation to the research because we will have
to
let go of the teleological idea of complete control in the design
process. Major aspects of the systems we aim for will have
to
develop 'on their own' by means of evolutionary computing techniques,
simply because these methods seems to facilitate the most
stable and
tolerant systems - as in nature. Besides studies show that we will
reach a limit in decreasing the size of hardware. Identical
components
will simply perform uniquely due to micro-physical effects leaving
circuits with idiosyncratic characteristics. Thus we will have
to rely on a structural and functional coupling
emerging from the development of the systems themselves instead
of being designed top-down.
Designing will have longer
perspectives than
we
are used
to. Creating technology will be a matter of both development
and evolution, or ontogenesis and phylogenesis. Ontogenetic
factors will be new
to us. Today we are only used to the 'history' of artifacts
as patina and wear, which is not an actively adaptive feature (it
can be a passive adaptation
though).
Instead a new type of technology will emerge that is not ready
for
use when it leaves the production line, but that needs to
learn, mature
and perhaps even grow. Artifacts will develop and evolve - and
thus get 'designed' - on the fly with their use. We
are more familiar with the notion of phylogenesis of design, albeit
in a metaphorical sense as improvement of artifacts over
several 'generations'. However this process will be of
even greater importance when we start 'breeding' on successful
systems. We cannot rely on old fashioned design and production
because we will probably not be able to analyze vast AmbI systems
completely do to their
complexity. In its extreme this evolutionary tendency could also
lead to the end of mass production born with industrialism. An
IT design
strategy resting on historical and developmental factors, which
are intrinsically contingent, would leave the idea of large scale
production
of identical products uninteresting.
Instead of purchasing finished static 'products'
we will start buying into dynamic 'produces' continuously
developing by responding to their
use. Produces
will be more like a service providing the right kind
of developmental possibilities than a commodity. Produces will obtain
a functional coupling with their users in a mutually forming adaptive
process. Adaptation does not mean accommodation to fixed circumstances
as some seem to think but actively seeking optimal fit by interactive
negotiations. In such a process AmbI produces might 'train' the user
in some kind of functional deal. Thus produces harbors the possibility
of
highly
idiosyncratic practices and very personal relations between people
and their technology.
Users and consumers on the other hand should
prepare for a different technology where
features, speed and
'squeaky-clean' aesthetics is stressed less than
reliability, adaptivity, self-maintenance and calmness. This part
of a 'bio-mimetic turn' in the design of technology will be the
most controversial due to
the
social and symbolic nature of man. The reason being that our technology
is a cultural phenomenon that serves other and sometimes much more
important purposes than strict functional assistance. We communicate
by way of our artifacts, and seem to like them flashy, to have
a lot of features and
to facilitate identity. Some even suggests that technology culturally
serves as the antidote of the creepy, slimy, dangerously subversive
forces of nature.
A need for a new kind of consumer
ethics
will
probably
rise (for products that is not use-and-through-away). If
the informational or software level and the materiality or hardware
level of systems
starts to merge we probably just
cannot
continue the informational promiscuity we impose on our computers
now by installing and uninstalling software, downloading
all
sorts of files and programs etc. If properly functioning technology
starts resting on integrated development, we will start to
be more
critical about the long term treatment of our assisting devices
and not just rely on anti-virus programs and cleaning from time
to
time.
Maintenance of especially vital devices will start being more
therapeutic or historically sensitive.
Why biomimetics?
One important
question is the nature and rationality of the biomimetic quest.
Why is it so
interesting to look to
nature in the design of technology at all? Without denying that
the bio-focused tendency we experience these years is sometimes
hyped
beyond bearing (due to various more or less historical factors
such
as neo-romanticism, the environmental movement and the ever
implicitly legitimized
reference to the norms of nature) I think there is some good
and sound reasons for studying natural systems as well. The basic
argument
is our limited
cognitive capacities as Home Sapiens. We were never promised
a
more privileged access to reality than an ecological balancing
survival
and energy costs reasonably. Thus we are perhaps superior in
building tools and artifacts compared to other animals, but when
it
comes to
really complex constructs we just cannot overview every
aspect. Hence we try to 'import' some of the mechanisms
we think we
have unveiled in natural complex systems and processes in order
for them to take care of business when we cannot ourselves. Plus
many
complex systems are intrinsically dynamic so that we just cannot
'build' them because they are heavily historically constrained
(this aspect
could stem from our limited insight though). The strategy is
to take advantage of the huge amount of 'empirical knowledge'
that nature
possesses after a long, slow and thorough evolutionary process.
A
story about how life by evolution came to exploit the goodwill
of the universe, i.e. the tendency in living systems to
organize and order various processes by
recursively using
the spontaneous
(law-like) pattern-generating abilities inherent in the universe.
A capability we would very much like to adopt and benefit from
faced with the great technological challenges that lies ahead.
Another reason to study biological
processes is the need for a deepened understanding of the informational
or semiotic
aspect of the natural orchestration of system organization, in
order
to approach questions like: What are the informational processes
involved
in the flow of natural systems? Are information processes a singular
phenomenon, like a natural law, or is it a range of loosely
related
dynamic phenomena? How much semantics is involved in informational
processes, i.e. are these processes more related to causality
than meaning?
Can information processes be adequately treated without including
the
structure and materiality of systems? How does information relate
to patterns in general? I think a lot of questions like these will
have to be addressed
in
order to gain properly from a biomimetic approach. A quest I have
heroically thrown myself into