Transcript Abbott

Complex Systems Engineering
• Complex systems are no longer mysterious.
• We have a broad consensus about
– what we mean by a complex system,
– what their properties are, and
– how they operate.
• It’s time to put complex systems to work.
January 11, 2007
Russ Abbott
Characteristics – structure
• Multi-scalar, i.e., multiple levels of abstraction
– IT systems involve quantum physics, solid-state electronics, gates &
logic, software (often many levels), CONOPs, …
– Prone to phase transitions/chaos: small change → big effect.
– Each level illustrates emergence, sometimes planned sometime
unplanned.
• If the system involves real physical stuff …
– No useful bottom level. Quarks? Quantum waves? Strings?
• Hence no good models of evolutionary arms races.
– The levels cannot be completely isolated from each other …
• or we would have magic, i.e., new sources of causation, e.g., vitalism.
• except when implemented in software.
• Includes “loosely coupled” components with a certain
degree of autonomy, e.g., agents.
January 11, 2007
Russ Abbott
Characteristics – environment
• Intimately entangled with its environment.
– Built to interact with its environment—to do something in the world.
– Can often be controlled/manipulated by modifying its environment.
• Each level of abstraction is often a multi-sided platform.
– A shopping center, an operating system, a browser, a standard.
– Whoever owns it controls it! (See governance below.)
• Boundaries are deliberately permeable and indistinct.
– Must extract energy from its environment to persist. (“Far from equilibrium.”)
– Societies (of internal and external “agents”); not monolithic structures.
• System of systems; the operator goes home; a new president is elected.
• Must adapt to a continually changing environment
– The environment continually adapts to it.
– Simultaneously (a) deployed and (b) under development and self-repair.
• e.g., us (you and me), a government, a corporation, Wikipedia.
– A social entity; hardware and software are only bones and nerves.
– Requires a well thought out governance structure.
January 11, 2007
Russ Abbott
Our task – to deploy these ideas
• To refine, clarify, and formalize them.
• To evangelize.
– To make them intuitive, commonplace, and
everyday—a part of everyone’s vernacular.
• To use them to conceptualize our systems.
• To make them operational.
– To adapt them to practice in building real systems.
– To create development processes based on them.
– To build tools that allow anyone to use them.
January 11, 2007
Russ Abbott
This symposium
• This is an interdisciplinary symposium
• Most of us are not expert in many of the
issues discussed in the papers.
– What’s obvious to you may be a complete
mystery to me—and vice versa.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for simplified
explanations or to ask what questions
motive you.
• We are here to learn from each other.
January 11, 2007
Russ Abbott