BCSSS

International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics

2nd Edition, as published by Charles François 2004 Presented by the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science Vienna for public access.

About

The International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics was first edited and published by the system scientist Charles François in 1997. The online version that is provided here was based on the 2nd edition in 2004. It was uploaded and gifted to the center by ASC president Michael Lissack in 2019; the BCSSS purchased the rights for the re-publication of this volume in 200?. In 2018, the original editor expressed his wish to pass on the stewardship over the maintenance and further development of the encyclopedia to the Bertalanffy Center. In the future, the BCSSS seeks to further develop the encyclopedia by open collaboration within the systems sciences. Until the center has found and been able to implement an adequate technical solution for this, the static website is made accessible for the benefit of public scholarship and education.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

ROBOTS (Social) 4)5)

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Groups of artificial organisms able to develop a coordinated behavior.

Such groups are showing what is now called swarm intelligence, as can be observed in ants or bees… and human societies.

Various Artificial Intelligence laboratories in the world are presently experimenting with self-organizing groups of robots: at M.I.T. (R. BROOKS and P. MAES), at Brussels Free University (L. STEELS), at ONERA and Paris VI University (J. ERCEAU and J. FERBER).

This research in so-called "artificial life" is at least partly inspired in insect societies. It seems promised to a considerable technical future (for example in extra-terrestrial exploration). It is however probably even more important in relation to our knowledge of the general systemic nature of sociality.

As an example L. STEELS, quoted by S. LEVY (1992, p.302), constructed "a robot ecology" based on functional self-organization… drawing from the social insects and cellular automata studies of his neighbors at the University of Brussels, studying under PRIGOGINE, and postulationg robots running under BROOKS's subsumption architecture".

The subject is also related to emergence through dissipative structuration processes affecting, in this case, groups of numerous interacting elements.(See for instance P.M. ALLEN, 1980 and 1982).

Categories

  • 1) General information
  • 2) Methodology or model
  • 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
  • 4) Human sciences
  • 5) Discipline oriented

Publisher

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).

To cite this page, please use the following information:

Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]

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