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A leading mind in cybernetics Genevieve Bell, Director, School of Cybernetics and 3A Institute (3Ai) at the Australian National University
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istinguished Professor, Genevieve Bell, AO FAHA FTSE, is the Director of the School of Cybernetics and 3A Institute (3Ai) at the Australian National University, and a Vice President and a Senior Fellow in the advanced research and development labs at Intel Corporation. Recently nominated in our Top 100 Women in Technology, Bell holds a PhD in cultural anthropology from Stanford University and is a renowned anthropologist, technologist, and futurist, having spent more than two decades in Silicon Valley. There, she helped guide Intel's product development, as well as the company’s social science and design research capabilities, and is best known for her work at the intersection of cultural practice and technology development. An influential voice within academia, industry and government, she has a vital role in the global debates surrounding artificial intelligence and human society. Bell is inspired by AmericanCanadian speculative fiction writer and essayist William Gibson – father
20
May 2022
Recently nominated in our
TOP 100
Women in Technology
of the cyberpunk subgenre cyberpunk – and his quote: “The future’s already here, it’s just unevenly distributed.” Of the quote, Bell explains to dovetail.app: “It’s a lovely provocation because it means if you know how to find it, you can find the future today.” Explaining cybernetics In her #mtpcon Digital APAC keynote, Bell explains that the term ‘cybernetics’ was coined by Norbert Wiener, a mathematician, philosopher and computer scientist, who drew inspiration from the Greek word ‘carbonates’ — a word describing the person who steers a boat. The journey that cybernetics was concerned with in 1946 (one pursued by ‘cyberneticians’) was humanity’s conquest into the digital age, as “governments, universities, and companies were all competing to take advantage of recent innovations, all over the world”, according to Bell. In cybernetics, Bell explains that Wiener created a “world that would reflect how humans might be in control of these technical systems as they unfolded”. Bell states he “believed that, as the power of computing expanded, the world would become a whole new kind of feedback loop; not just a
