Generative systems

{{Short description|Technologies that can produce change driven by audiences}}

Generative systems are technologies with the overall capacity to produce unprompted change driven by large, varied, and uncoordinated audiences.{{cite journal |last= Zittrain|first=Jonathan |date= May 2006|title=The Generative Internet |jstor= 4093608 |journal= Harvard Law Review|volume=119 |issue=7 |pages=1974–2040 }} 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.{{cite book|author1=Robin Teigland|author2=Dominic Power|title=The Immersive Internet: Reflections on the Entangling of the Virtual with Society, Politics and the Economy|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T5mx4Ei2cHwC&pg=PA204|date=25 March 2013|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-1-137-28302-3|pages=205}}

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.{{Cite book|last=Zittrain, Jonathan (Jonathan L.), 1969-|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/289029003|title=The future of the Internet and how to stop it|date=2008|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-14473-4|location=New Haven [Conn.]|oclc=289029003}} More examples can be found in generative music, generative art, in video games such as Spore, and more recently generative generosity and platforms like [https://generos.io generos.io].

Theory

= Jonathan Zittrain =

In 2006, Jonathan Zittrain published The Generative Internet in Volume 119 of the Harvard Law Review. 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

  • {{annotated link|Digital morphogenesis}}
  • {{annotated link|Emergence|Emergent behavior}}
  • {{annotated link|Generative adversarial network}}
  • {{annotated link|Generative art}}
  • {{annotated link|Generative artificial intelligence}}
  • {{annotated link|Generative design}}
  • {{annotated link|Generative grammar}}
  • {{annotated link|Generative music}}
  • {{annotated link|Generative pre-trained transformer}}
  • {{annotated link|Generative science}}
  • {{Annotated link|Generativity}}

References