SteerComplex 2015 - Steering Complex Systems Workshop

Many pressing societal challenges and promising new technologies require a better ability to understand and manage complex adaptive systems (CAS). Conventional approaches are often "brute force", attempting input and effort intensive control, and are often insufficient when dealing with the inherent non-linearity and complexity of CASs. CASs require management tools that interact with dynamic processes rather than inert artefacts. We suggest a "steering" approach; continuously interacting with systems, manipulating them or their environment via leverage points which exploit their structure and dynamics, monitoring their responses and responding to their adaptation. The tools, techniques and overarching methodological framework required for this approach are at a nascent stage and importantly, many of the CASs which we would most like to influence have significant social components and thus may require the integration of participatory or political processes with tools from complexity science. Accomplishing this effectively will rely on interdisciplinary efforts encompassing social and political, as well as natural, sciences, engineering and philosophy. In this broad-ranging and discursive workshop we aim to identify key ideas and implications of this new paradigm and explore ways in which the Artificial Life Community can uniquely contribute.