Tuesday, April 07, 2015

Enterprise 2000 revisited

Simon Wardley has reminded me that Mapping is the only way to the future.

 

So I decided to apply his technique to an old Vision that I once helped write.

 

Extend Human Capability and

Promote Global Collaboration by

Providing Continuous Natural Access to

People and Knowledge

 

Ah it's clear now that this must have come from Simon's Strategem Algorithm

 

What does it look like with Simon'sMapping applied?

 

Extend Entity Capability and

Promote Global Collabora-Things by

Providing Transparent & Trustworthy Natural Access to

Entities and Smart Knowledge







Hmmm perhaps I've missed the point?


But then I did write this last Wednesday!!

Collabora-Things

OK, so that is a hateful join of two things, in this case words! But that will be what we get, when we let Things join together willy nilly. Most of the Thing joins done out of sight, and not under our direct control will be neither fortuitous nor laudable.

I recall trying to contact the folks behind the current Thing joining standard, DLNA. I had hoped to find a group of individuals who were planning to build "Agency" into their standard, at least I was until I understood them to be an association of Thing Manufacturers. When I understood the FLA, it stands for Digital Living Network Alliance, it became clearer, their goal is to let things connect to share data, mostly media related data. Put plainly DLNA servers publish all media files they hold to any and all compliant DLNA clients.

My conversation with them, was short and not so sweet, it resulted in them not understanding why I might not want any DLNA compliant thing to be able find and connect to any DLNA compliant server on my network. It ended with me being told "if you don't want them (the DLNA servers) to be connected to, then switch them off!" They clearly didn't understand my point or motivation. I wanted to add human agency to the DLNA standard, and they didn't see the need.

There are other Media related sharing standards, like Apple's proprietary AirPlay. Apple made the sharing activity human centric, the server in this case a smart phone or IPad will only share to a client under the direct control of a human. Putting the AirPlay Server under the control of the user, rather than allowing the user to use an AirPlay Client to browse all servers, is IMHO the right thing to do, Human Agency was put at the right point in the process of sharing.

As a test I placed a "Inappropriate Media File "on one of my disks that acts as an DLNA server, and tried to make it unavailable to my television, so that my Grandchildren could not stumble upon said file. The fellows from DLNA was right. If I didn't want the file to be available to my Grandkids, I needed to turn off the DLNA service on the disk. Be aware that when DLNA servers are enabled, "any" DLNA enabled client on a network can browse the files so published.

When it was just about sharing Media, perhaps Agency wasn't a high priority, as users could be relied on to not publish inappropriate material on their private networks. In truth, apart from the fact that they can't be relied upon, this also ignores the porosity of most home networks, that is few Betworks are private.

If I were a musician or filmmaker I would be concerned that my material was being published on DLNA servers, connected behind porous network routers. For I can imagine an illicit media service that reaches into the deperimeterised home networks to map, and provide access to the worlds DLNA published media.

As Things become more capable, and they start controlling each other, building Human Agency into the protocols that allow the Things to collaborate will surely be a necessity? Not just from the view points of Intellectual Property, and Privacy, but also from the view points of Fiduciary and Personal Safety.

Alternatively we can build Things that can think and act Autonomously, applying human values to their decisions, and Asimovs Four Laws of Robotics will apply!

Is Small and Simple really the best way to avoid complexity?

Alternate Title: Should we Exploit, Manage or Avoid Emergent Behaviour in the Internet of Things

Complicated is not the same a Complex, as those who study Complexity theory know well. Some of these theorists, posit that Complicated Systems can be designed, with behaviour that can be both predicted and controlled, while Complex Systems cannot. Complex Systems are normally found when a large number of smaller components or entities with similar goals are found in a specific domain. Their individual behaviour cannot be easily predicted but the emergent behaviours can often be divined once they have started to emerge. However it is not clear that they can be divined from a given set of starting points and/or constraints.

Computer Modelling of Complex Systems are increasingly used to develop theories as profound as the existence of dark matter, or the Location of Black holes. By running the increasingly detailed models enough times the required starting conditions are being established.

One of the outcomes of the increasingly detailed instrumentation of humanity is the fact that our every move and intention are being observed and collected by Things that are being given goals.

These Things are being connected in increasingly complex matrices or fabrics. We are creating the conditions of a Complex System in the Internet of Things. Complexity Theory predicts that there will be emergent behaviours.

Have any such emergent behaviours already surfaced?

Who is accountable for detecting, observing or regulating such behaviours?

What are the starting conditions for Autonomy to emerge as a new behaviour from this Network of Things?

Would we be allowed to become aware of the conditions that would allow the creation of this emergent behaviour? For after all the Computer Models would be under the control of the Things!

Why am I being reminded of Mice? Oh yes, they were the authors of the code to find "The question!", given the answer to Life the Universe and Everything was 42!. In this case Arthur Dent, the supposed sole survivor of the planet Earth, was the Thing that developed autonomous behaviour. As I recall he wasn't very happy to discover he was simply part of a System to divine a question.