Generative systems

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Generative systems are technologies with the overall capacity to produce unprompted change driven by large, varied, and uncoordinated audiences. [1] When generative systems provide a common platform, changes may occur at varying layers (physical, network, application, content) and provide a means through which different firms and individuals may cooperate indirectly and contribute to innovation. [2]

Contents

Depending on the rules, the patterns can be extremely varied and unpredictable. One of the better-known examples is Conway's Game of Life, a cellular automaton. Other examples include Boids and Wikipedia. [3] More examples can be found in generative music, generative art, and, more recently, in video games such as Spore.

Theory

Jonathan Zittrain

In 2006, Jonathan Zittrain published The Generative Internet in Volume 119 of the Harvard Law Review. [1] In this paper, Zittrain describes a technology's degree of generativity as being the function of four characteristics:

See also

Related Research Articles

Jonathan Zittrain American law professor

Jonathan L. Zittrain is an American professor of Internet law and the George Bemis Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School. He is also a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, a professor of computer science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and co-founder and director of Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Previously, Zittrain was Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute of the University of Oxford and visiting professor at the New York University School of Law and Stanford Law School. He is the author of The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, as well as co-editor of the books, Access Denied, Access Controlled, and Access Contested.

Generative art Art created by a set of rules, without human intervention.

Generative art refers to art that in whole or in part has been created with the use of an autonomous system. An autonomous system in this context is generally one that is non-human and can independently determine features of an artwork that would otherwise require decisions made directly by the artist. In some cases the human creator may claim that the generative system represents their own artistic idea, and in others that the system takes on the role of the creator.

Generative science Study of how complex behaviour can be generated by deterministic and finite rules and parameters

Generative science is an area of research that explores the natural world and its complex behaviours. It explores ways "to generate apparently unanticipated and infinite behaviour based on deterministic and finite rules and parameters reproducing or resembling the behavior of natural and social phenomena". By modelling such interactions, it can suggest that properties exist in the system that had not been noticed in the real world situation. An example field of study is how unintended consequences arise in social processes.

Net neutrality Principle that Internet service providers should treat all data equally

Network neutrality, most commonly called net neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, and not discriminate or charge differently based on user, content, website, platform, application, type of equipment, source address, destination address, or method of communication.

The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society is a research center at Harvard University that focuses on the study of cyberspace. Founded at Harvard Law School, the center traditionally focused on internet-related legal issues. On May 15, 2008, the center was elevated to an interfaculty initiative of Harvard University as a whole. It is named after the Berkman family. On July 5, 2016, the Center added "Klein" to its name following a gift of $15 million from Michael R. Klein.

Commons-based peer production (CBPP) is a term coined by Harvard Law School professor Yochai Benkler. It describes a model of socio-economic production in which large numbers of people work cooperatively; usually over the Internet. Commons-based projects generally have less rigid hierarchical structures than those under more traditional business models.

Yochai Benkler

Yochai Benkler is an Israeli-American author and the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

John Palfrey

John Gorham Palfrey VII is an American educator, scholar, and law professor. He is an authority on the legal aspects of emerging media, and he is an advocate for Internet freedom, including increased online transparency and accountability as well as child safety. In March 2019, he was named the president of the MacArthur Foundation effective September 1, 2019. Palfrey was the Head of School at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts from 2012 to 2019. He has been an important figure at Harvard Law School and served as executive director of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society from 2002 to 2008.

The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) was a joint project whose goal was to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employed a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigators, to determine the extent and nature of government-run internet filtering programs. Participating academic institutions included the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto; Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School; the Oxford Internet Institute (OII) at University of Oxford; and, The SecDev Group, which took over from the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme, University of Cambridge.

Christopher Yoo

Christopher S. Yoo is the John H. Chestnut Professor of Law, Communication, and Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and the founding director of the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Competition. He is well known for his work on technology law, media law and copyright, and is among the most frequently cited authors in that domain. He is best known for being among the first academics to engage in the debate over network neutrality. He has strived to take a middle ground that takes neither too restrictive nor too permissive an approach, animated by the belief that innovation needs room for experimentation if it is to thrive. He characterizes his position as network "diversity," which argues that the technology and economic environment surrounding the Internet requires greater flexibility, with the difficult question being how much flexibility is too much. He has also studied the history of the unitary executive in the United States.

Generative may refer to:

Internet censorship

Internet censorship is the control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet enacted by regulators, or on their own initiative. Individuals and organizations may engage in self-censorship for moral, religious, or business reasons, to conform to societal norms, due to intimidation, or out of fear of legal or other consequences.

Generativity Term originating in psychology to describe a concern for the next generation

The term generativity was coined by the psychoanalyst Erik Erikson in 1950 to denote "a concern for establishing and guiding the next generation." He first used the term while defining the Care stage in his theory of the stages of psychosocial development.

Generative design

Generative design is an iterative design process that involves a program that will generate a certain number of outputs that meet certain constraints, and a designer that will fine tune the feasible region by selecting specific output or changing input values, ranges and distribution. The designer doesn't need to be a human, it can be a test program in a testing environment or an artificial intelligence, for example a generative adversarial network. The designer learns to refine the program with each iteration as their design goals become better defined over time.

MyWikiBiz

MyWikiBiz is a wiki directory that allows people and enterprises to write about themselves. The brand began as a service creating Wikipedia articles for paying corporations.

<i>The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It</i>

The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It is a book published in 2008 by Yale University Press and authored by Jonathan Zittrain. The book discusses several legal issues regarding the Internet.

Information policy is the set of all public laws, regulations and policies that encourage, discourage, or regulate the creation, use, storage, access, and communication and dissemination of information. It thus encompasses any other decision-making practice with society-wide constitutive efforts that involve the flow of information and how it is processed.

Technoliberalism is a political philosophy founded on ideas of liberty, individuality, responsibility, decentralization, and self-awareness. It also highlights an idea that technology should be available to everyone with minimal controls. Its core beliefs fit under five main interests that include Construction of the Government, Economics, Civil Liberties, Education and Science, and Environment. Technoliberals support such ideas as balance of powers in the government, decentralization, affordable education, the protection of our planet, Fine Arts, and the freedom of speech and communication technologies.

A generative adversarial network (GAN) is a class of machine learning frameworks designed by Ian Goodfellow and his colleagues in 2014. Two neural networks contest with each other in a game.

OGAS was a Soviet project to create a nationwide information network. The project began in 1962 but was denied necessary funding in 1970. It was one of a series of attempts to create a nationwide network analogous to what became the Internet, all of which failed.

References

  1. 1 2 Zittrain, Jonathan (May 2006). "The Generative Internet". Harvard Law Review. JSTOR   4093608.
  2. Robin Teigland; Dominic Power (25 March 2013). The Immersive Internet: Reflections on the Entangling of the Virtual with Society, Politics and the Economy. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 205. ISBN   978-1-137-28302-3.
  3. Zittrain, Jonathan (Jonathan L.), 1969- (2008). The future of the Internet and how to stop it. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press. ISBN   978-0-300-14473-4. OCLC   289029003.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)