Visions of Cybernetic Organizations

Abstract

The essence of cybernetic organizations is that they are self-controlling, self-maintaining, self-realizing. Indeed, cybernetics has been characterized as the “science of effective organization,” in just these terms. But the word “cybernetics” conjures, in the minds of an apparently great number of people, visions of computerized information networks, closed loop systems, and robotized man-surrogates, such as “artorgas” and “cyborgs.” Man, the human animal, recoils. Surely this is not the world that Wiener envisaged, where there would at last be a “human use of human beings.” But, given the trend of manifest events, is this not the world which is most probably evolving? Those who hold such a view are probably epitomized by the late Amos de Shalit, a nuclear physicist who almost a decade ago contended that we live in a world in which cybernetic applications of computer technology had already progressed to a point at which an autonomous “Turing Machine” or “Uttley Machine” culture is clearly foreshadowed. Thus, in his view, the most man could hope for now is parity with the machine, in terms of domination of the planet. But at the other extreme are those whose view is that the cybernetic vision is largely a mirage, and whose attitude is characterized by the quip “Given enough competent human beings in attendance, any computerized information system can be made to work.” The argument of this paper runs in the following terms: That this is a time in human affairs when, In the context of the foregoing analysis, the “radical” point of view is likely to prove to be the “conservative” one: we may well be in the early stages of a “cybernetic revolution” worthy of “1984” and “RUR.” Thus, to accept as potential reality what may seem an alarmist view, may turn out to be the only perspective which secures viable options by promoting mankind's weltare. That it is not “too late” to forestall the evolution of a dehumanizing “cybernetic culture,” where humans are required to adapt ...