The
VSM as a foundation for social
systems in the XXI Century
Leonid Ototsky,
SIM chair of the MIPT - http://sim-mfti.a133.nthosting.ru/content/?fl=393
leonid.ototsky@.gmail.com , http://ototsky.mgn.ru/it
Keywords: VSM
, CyberSyn,
complex systems , social systems, sustainability,
information and communication systems - ICS)
1. As it was predicted
by Norbert Wiener the ICT
progress will be the core for a “worldwide state in the next century” (in the
Wiener’s terminology) . He has made this prediction in his book “Cybernetics
and Society” in the early 1950s where he stressed the key role of the
Information Technologies for the “
On the one side today’s ICT
should permit a “nervous system“ for
a global organization of human activities. On the other side technical, social,
ecological and climate challenges are becoming sharper and there is a need to
revise old fashion institutions to solve humanity’s deep problems.
2 . Wiener did not provide
detailed arguments for his prediction
but we see now a great activity in the ICT to create a
“peripheral nervous system” of the “Humankind Super organism” . Also
there must be made a great of work for creating the “central nervous system” of it . The beginning of
such work has been made
by Stafford Beer in his Viable Systen
Model (VSM - http://www.ototsky.mgn.ru/it/beer_vsm.html
) . Beer not only developed the VSM theory but realized it in practice in
the CyberSyn project . It is significant that
the Chilean Government gave a grant for the “reconstruction” of aspects of the CyberSyn project in 2007. This
reconstruction has been exhibited at ZKM in
3. Yet in the early 90th
in his “World in Torment” paper Beer wrote with great skepticism about
the organization of modern society. With many arguments he wrote : “I estimate that more human beings are
enduring agony today than ever before; the number could be greater than the sum
of sufferers throughout history. I speak of starvation and epidemic; war and
terrorism; deprivation, exploitation, and physical torture. I repeat the word
agony; I am not talking about 'hard times' “
. Also he wrote: “Soviet communism has accepted its own demise;
Western capitalism has not accepted it yet.” From wider point of view old
styled institutions such as the UN could be radically changed according the
principles of the VSM. Now we see some
global financial problems as well but Beer described
possible problems more than 35 years ago.
4. Taking into account
the “recursive” structure of the VSM with the same System1-5 hierarchy at all
structural levels there is a great need to use its ideas for lower levels of
“recursion” constituting the “humankind’s global problems” . An implementation
of the VSM at these levels could be a solid foundation for more global tasks.
Such very hot topic to improve current business analytical tools for top
management has close relation with VSM ideas and activities. Despite OLAP’s continued growth at a rate
faster than most other enterprise software, there is no reason to be optimistic
about their impact in improving the viability of enterprises. Still performance
management tools are not using features such as “real-time dashboards”,
“alerts” to monitor “suspicious situations” etc. However these were features of
the VSM based CyberSyn
project about 40 years ago - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersyn
. In the late 80´s and early 90´s the operational
director of CyberSyn, Raul Espejo ( http://www.cybersyn.cl/ingles/cybersyn/team.html
), developed the CyberFilter
software package with the still limited PC capabilities of those years ( http://www.syncho.com/pages/pdf/Cyberfilter%20manual.pdf
). Modern ICTs,
such as Internet mobile devices and wire free communication networks are
capable of a much more sophisticated development of the VSM ideas, for example
the development of “virtual” distributed ‘operation rooms’, which were at the
“heart” of the CyberSyn
project ( http://www.cybersyn.cl/ingles/cybersyn/opsroom.html
).
5. The VSM can be
useful also for the development of ICTs.
The challenges concern not only the new generations of ERPs and related tools (e.g. new generations of
software for performance management in “real-time”, integration of MES and ERP
etc.) but more significantly the development of “autonomic” programming systems
too ( http://www.zurich.ibm.com/pdf/ebizz/idd-ac.pdf
) . Also there is a great need for new generations of Autonomic
Intellectual Systems (AIS) (new generation of Robots ahead of all). It is not
accidental that students of the the
AIS have visited the Cybersyn
“reconstruction” presentation at the YOU_ser
exhibition at Karsruhe in
October 2007 - http://picasaweb.google.com/Leonid.Ototsky/CybersynAtTheYOU_ser2007 .
6 . An interest to
the Cybersyn heritage is great now in
- http://razvitie-plan.ru/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/ (rus) . The young generation of the group
in
There was organized a “Management Cybernetics” Portal where took part some
members abroad
. There was organized a livejournal “ru_cybercyn” - http://community.livejournal.com/ru_cybersyn/
. Because the Victor Glushkov’s project
of a National Automatized System of Administration of Economy
(NASAE) for the
http://www.ototsky.mgn.ru/it/presentations/Glushkov-Beer_heritage.htm . Although it is in Russian but there are two
photos there.
7. The above are only
few examples that illustrate the need to review Stafford Beer’s heritage in the
benefit of humankind’s sustainability and evolution – http://www.ototsky.mgn.ru/vsm .
8 . And the global World Crises 2008-2009 only stressed a
need to use the Stafford Beer’s heritage . Yet in the early 90th
he wrote “Soviet communism accepted its
own demise; Western capitalism has not accepted it yet” – http://ototsky.mgn.ru/vsm/ .
9. The Challenge today
is to implement, with our current methodological and technological
developments, a “global” project like
that was developed in Chile in 1972- 1973- http://ototsky.mgn.ru/it/lessons.htm
