Who is building, managing and decommissioning our Ai-enabled future?
This question is at the heart of our mission, and our way in is cybernetics. We are drawing on the history of cybernetics and reimagining it for our 21st century challenges.
The School of Cybernetics is establishing programs that blend education, research and engagement to create a new generation of practitioners. Through our programs we are building a new branch of engineering to safely, sustainably and responsibly scale cyber-physical systems. We focus on systems as a unit of analysis and driver of action for industries working with complexity. We are generating new approaches to shape the future through and with technology.
The School of Cybernetics is now the home of the 3A Institute, and is building upon the foundational work and mission of 3Ai under the leadership of Distinguished Professor Genevieve Bell. Throughout 2021 we will add Systems and Design capability to our portfolio in the School.
Why do we need a newbranch of engineering?
The 3A Institute sits within the School of Cybernetics with the mission to build a new branch of engineering to take AI-enabled cyber-physical systems to scale and to create a new generation of practitioners with the skills and knowledge we need to help shape this future safely, sustainably and responsibly.
As people invent, commercialise and operationalise new technologies, new practitioners emerge to manage them. Just as the invention of programmable computers led to the professionalisation of software engineers, cyber-physical systems will lead to a new type of engineer.
We don’t know what this new type of engineering will be called yet, but we know we need it if we are to build a safe, sustainable and responsible future.
And we know that we need to be explicit about values along the way. So we are shaping a different set of conversations about people, technology and the environment, conversations that will include voices from unexpected places. We are looking to cybernetics as an approach to scale the future, to make sense of the systems that shape our world and create the next generation of critical thinkers and doers.
How else can we navigate this data-driven, digital world, and make it into a place that reflects all our humanity, all our cultures and all our cares, and ensures that we are responsible custodians of planet earth?
How will we get there?
Education
Explore different ways into education and training – from training a new type of engineer to bringing skills development to the broadest cross-section of society.
Knowledge
Conduct novel research and connecting existing research to yield insights that lead to action.
People
Bring together people from different places, backgrounds and disciplines to activate a systems approach to safely, sustainably and responsibly building the kind of world we want to live in.