3. Resisting Reduction

Welcome to the third issue of the Journal of Design and Science, a joint publication of the MIT Media Lab and the MIT Press. JoDS’ mission is to forge new connections between science and design, breaking down the barriers between traditional academic disciplines in the process. Our new issue looks at designing a complex and unknowable future with machines, questioning theories such as Singularity and modern economic and market-based decision making. What if the promise of AI is not a question of humans versus machines but one of intelligence augmentation in collaboration with machines? Can you envision a new approach to increase human flourishing informed by second-order cybernetics, systems dynamics, and complex systems that resists the dangerous reductionist paradigms we currently use? The essays shared here, in conversation with Joi Ito’s manifesto “Resisting Reduction,” explore machine intelligence in light of diverse ecosystems in nature and its relationship to humanity.

Enjoy, and please join the JoDS conversation!





—Amy Brand and Joi Ito



