Generative systems
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]
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, in video games such as Spore, and more recently generative generosity and platforms like generos.io.
Theory
[edit | edit source]Jonathan Zittrain
[edit | edit source]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:
- Capacity for leverage – the extent to which an object enables something to be accomplished that would not have otherwise be possible or worthwhile.
- Adaptability – how widely a technology can be used without it needing to be modified.
- Ease of mastery – how much effort and skill is required for people to take advantage of the technology's leverage.
- Accessibility – how easily people are able to start using a technology.
See also
[edit | edit source]- Digital morphogenesis – Generative art in which complex shape development, or morphogenesis, enabled by computation
- Emergent behavior – Unpredictable phenomenon in complex systems
- Generative adversarial network – Deep learning method
- Generative art – Art created by a set of rules, often using computers
- Generative artificial intelligence – Subset of AI using generative models
- Generative design – Iterative design process
- Generative grammar – Research tradition in linguistics
- Generative music – Music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system
- Generative pre-trained transformer – Type of large language model
- Generative science – Study of nature's complex behaviour systems
- Generativity – Term originating in psychology to describe a concern for the next generation
References
[edit | edit source]- ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
External links
[edit | edit source]- A talk on generative systems by Will Wright and Brian Eno for the Long Now Foundation
- The Future of the Internet and How to Stop it; Yale University Press (2008)
- Early generative computer graphics by Herber W. Franke
- Generative Systeme by Benedikt Groß and Julia Laub
- Bugworld - a generative vermin installation by Philipp Sackl, Markus Jaritz & Thomas Gläser
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