After computer science and technology, we need a living lab science and technology, a new social high tech for the design of the new social structures of the digital era, beyond the digital platforms.

1. Living labs,
as new social high tech.
Artur Serra
Living Lab Group,
Fundació i2cat
artur.serra@i2cat.net
Barcelona, June 27, 2016

2. 2
Índex
• I. Technocultures, ahead
• II. The cultures of design.
• III. Nets and Labs
• IV. The Anthropocen: the opportunity for Europe.

3. 1. Technocultures ahead

4. The era of technocultures

5. Margareth Mead
Pre-figurative Cultures
“Culture and Engagement” (1971)
Modes of
Culture
Post-figurative cultures.
-Primitive and religious societies
-Power in the hands of elders.
-The pass tense, the langage of myths.
Co-figurative cultures.
-Modern industrial societies.
-Power in the hands of peers. Nuclear family
-The present tense. The world of today
Pre-figurative cultures
-Digital innovation socities.
-Young generation lives with different set of values
than parents and grand-parents.
-Future tense, pre-figuration as new cultural form.

6. M.J. Buxó
Modes of knowledge (1988)
Cognitive
Anthropology
University of
Barcelona
Post-figurative
cultures:
Co-figurative
Cultures
Cultures
prefiguratives:
Mytho-poietic knowledge.
Conceptual realism
Logic-formal knowledge
Mathematization of universe
Design as cultural knowlege
Anthropological prospective.

7. Project “Sciences of design,
High technologies and Cultural Tradition”
(1990-1992)

8. Technoantropology
Maria J. Buxó
Angel Jordan (1992)
“This is the study of technology as a cultural
system….Technoantropology elaborates the
expert systems of knowledge that help to
develop the cultural design” Design Culture” A.
Serra 1992:5)

10. 2. “Design Culture”:
Ethnography of School of Computer Science. Carnegie
Mellon, 1990-1993.
10
Projecte de recerca: “Ciènc
del disseny, noves
tecnologies i tradició
cultural” (1990-93), finanç
Pel
Departament
De Presidència de la
Generalitat

11. The “ARPA laboratories”
Prior to 1965, there were no U.S. universities granting a Ph.D. in computer
science.
´”Licklider, and his ARPA successors, provided funding for the research needed
to create university graduate programs in computer science at U.C. Berkeley,
CMU, MIT and Stanford.
It wasn't until 1969 that Ph.D's in computer science were awarded”.
http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/99HISTORYCD-ARPA-History.HTM

12. Departments of Computer
Science.
The “ARPA Labs”. 1960s
#
1 Stanford University
Stanford, CA
#2 Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
#
3 Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Cambridge, MA

13. “Computer Science as an artificial
science”. 1988
13
- " Since computer science is an artificial science
(Simon 1981) theoretical computer science plays a
very different role within computer science than, say,
theoretical physics plays within physics.
- Theoretical physics seeks to understand the physical
universe, which exists independently. Theoretical
computer scientists seek to understand all possible
architectures or algorithms, which computer
scientists create themselves."
- “The National Challenge in Computer Science and Technology”
Computer Science and Technology Board, National Research Council,
1988.

14. “The scientists of the artificial”
Alan TuringFrank
Oppenheimer
J. Von Neumann Claude Shannon
WWII, Scientists became engineers,
and the engineers, scientists..

15. 15

16. Their research program.

17. “Sciences of artificial” are called
Synthetic Sciences

18. Two different models of innovation
1818
The traditional model:
Science-Technology-
Industry(Vanevar Bush)
The mission-driven
model: “High Tech”
(Darpa)
Science,
Basic Research
Technology,
Applied Research
Industry,
Development
Mission driven
Research:
Technology Research:
Basic and Applied
“Dual use
Technology”:
First defense, then
commercial.
((

19. Some examples:
The Internet
19
“Mission-driven research” “Dual use technology”

20. Second: The self-driving car
20
Stanley, winner 2005
Sebastia Thrun, director
AI Lab Stanford Univ.

21. 21
oordinating
ole of
White House

22. The Net and the Lab

23. The Lab,
LL science
The Lab,
LL science
Nets and Labs:
Two different types of technologies
in the digital era
The industrial machine
Industrial Engineering
The Factory
The Industrial Management
The Net
Computer science
Industrial era Digital era

24. 2050, every person, every thing could be connected to the Net

27. But…

28. Some results…
• Trustification of the Net. (Google,
Amazon, Facebook, Apple….)
• Increasing the centralized surveillance
(NSA,…)
• Repeting monopolies of the past ….
• Results 1. High tech benefits only one
part population, excluding the rest.
• Results 2: Ending the innovation in the
long term.

29. Instead of a new digital infrastructure
connecting old economic ,social , political
Structures…
It would be possible to generate new
economic, social, political, cultural
structures…?
The lab as new social high tech
What if?

30. “The Lab” (2020)
Open innovation collaboratory over the “the Net”

31. Von Hippel, Democratizing Innovation.
(2005)

32. ENoLL (2006)

33. Citilab, a citizen laboratory (2007).

35. (

36. (2014)

37. Towards a third model of innovation
3737
Vanevar Bush Model
(1945)
Darpa Model
(1957)
Science,
Basic Research
Technology,
Applied Research
Industry,
Development
Mission driven
Research:
Technology Research:
Basic and Applied
“Dual use
Technology”:
First defense, then
commercial.
((
Universal Model
(2016)
“Empowering
Everyone
To
Innovate”.
(ENoLL )

38. Quadruple Helix model,
opening the innovation systems
Universities Governments
Companies Citizens
(Arnkil et al.,Exploring Quadruple Helix 2010)

39. The real dimension
of the Quadruple Helix
Universities
Governments
Companies
Citizens

40. Barcelona as a collaboratory (2012).

41. IV. The Anthropocen:
the challenge for Europe

42. The Anthropocen
Paul Crutzen, 2000. “The Anthropocene is a
proposed epoch that begins when human activities started to
have a significant global impact
on Earth's geology and ecosystems” (Wikipedia)

43. 43
The Antropocen is coming with the era of
synthetic sciences: Human are transforming the
nature.
The problem now is to know if sapiens will also
be able of transform itself with the rest of
nature.
Maybe we need synthetic social sciences:
disciplines dedicate to augment our knowledge
about what kind of social and cultural systems
are possibles and how to build them.
The Anthropocen:
the era of synthetic sciences

44. The challenge for Europe
•Europe is now again in the forefront of the economic,
social and cultural crisis in the digital era. (Brexit case)
•We have not started the high tech era,
but we can help to develop it in a more humane and inclusive way.
•Living Labs research and innovation theories and practices are
the new kind of social high tech that can help to develop models
of society that will benefit of the potentialities of the new era
of innovation.

45. Moltes gràcies
Artur.serra@i2cat.net