Massimo Negrotti

Massimo Negrotti, has been since 1980 Full Professor of Methodology of Human Sciences at the Universities of Parma, Genoa and currently at the University of Urbino 'Carlo Bo' where he chairs the LCA (Lab for the culture of the artificial) [1]. His areas of research are methodology of human sciences & technology, cybernetics and the culture of the artificial.

Work

Since the late seventies M. Negrotti was involved in scientific discussions about the current outline and future directions of Artificial intelligence developing his own vision of this branch of the computer science while participating to related conferences and studies.

He provided scientific advice to private and public organizations; among these, he was member in the early nineties of the Consulting Committee for Artificial Intelligence at the Italian Ministry for the Scientific Research and reported on the cybernetics and A.I. advancements in special meetings of the Italian Ministry of Defense. Since the nineties and until 2002, he coordinated a series of biannual conferences on the ‘Culture of Artificial’, held alternatively in Switzerland and Italy and was member since the origins of the IRICHS (International Research Institute of Human Centred Systems) [2].

Negrotti is member of the Programme Board of the School of Doctorate “Virtual Prototypes and Real Products” of the Politecnico di Milano and of the Scientific Board of the Doctorate on “Methodology and Social Research” of the University of Florence; member of the scientific committes of “International Sociology” and “Sociology and social research” at the University of La Sapienza, Rome; “Sociology of the comunication” at the Urbino University and “Studies of Sociology” at the Catholic University of Milan.

He is associate editor of the international scientific journal Artificial Intelligence and Society (Springer-Verlag, London) [3] and was editor of the series Yearbook of the Artificial (Peter Lang, Bern) from 2002 to 2008 [4]. He wrote the entry ‘artificiality’ in ESTE (Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics), C. Mitcham, MacMillan, Farmington, Vol. I, 2005 [5].

He reported in several conferences and lectures in European, American and Japanese universities (among them, universities in Paris, Stockholm, Los Angeles, Berkeley, Santa Barbara, Chicago, Santa Cruz, Buffalo, Austin, Florence, Rome, Venice, Bari, Bologna, Brighton, Tokyo, Strasbourg, Lugano, Geneve, Innsbruck, Ålborg).

M. Negrotti is author or editor of more than 20 books and wrote hundreds of articles, on both Italian and international reviews, specialized periodicals and daily newspapers.

Theoretical work

Massimo Negrotti started working on AI during the seventies while this branch of the computer science was beginning facing its first difficulties (see ‘AI winter’).

Since 1983 he carried out theoretical and empirical surveys on the cultural assumptions and propositions of the Artificial intelligence people in Europe (Karlsruhe, Pisa, Brighton) and in the USA (Los Angeles) during official IJCAI conferences [6]. The list of the 101 different definitions of A.I. that he collected in hundreds of interviews, was published in Understanding the artificial: on the future shape of A.I..^[1] He pointed out that surprisingly AI people was much more attracted from the word “intelligence” rather than from the nature of the “artificial” and, while criticising the initial ambitions of the founders, started building an original theory with the aim to formalize the basis for the future developments of the concept of “artificial”, not only limited to the A.I., but including the whole range of human activities that, along the mankind history, try to reproduce what is already existing in nature, not only in terms of aesthetics but also at different functional levels ^[2][3] [7].

In order to help distinguishing what is merely an artificially realized copy of a natural subject from what is rather a technological reproduction at different observation levels, Negrotti coined in the late 1990s the term naturoid that refers to mankind's ambition, present since always, to represent, imitate or reproduce natural things and events, exploiting available materials and techniques.^[4]

From the Negrotti’s theory, it can be determined that there are no scientific elements to believe that naturoids will ever converge on natural models. This conclusion, supported by the English science writer Philip Ball, contrasts the position of those promoter of A.I. that believe that robots and computers could become one day, more humanoid in their features and functions.^[5][6]

In addition, Negrotti’s theory tries to depict the methodological phases, and the general power and limits, that characterize the design of any kind of naturoid, regardless the specific field they come from.^[7]

More recently he started investigating the techno-methodological approach to the human-machine interaction design, deepening the analysis of the End-user.^[8]

Selected publications by M. Negrotti

(1983) How A.I. people think, Chair of Sociology of Knowledge, University of Genoa

(1986) M. Negrotti, D. Bertasio, How European A.I. people think. A survey, “Computer compacts”, Amsterdam, III, 3 4

(1986) M. Negrotti, D. Bertasio, The Archimedes syndrome: cultural premises and A.I. technology in K. S. Gill (ed.) “Artificial Intelligence for society”, Wiley & Sons, Chichester

(1986) The A.I. people's way of looking at man and machine, “Applied Artificial Intelligence”, Washington, I,1

(1991) (ed.) Understanding the artificial: on the future shape of A.I., Springer-Verlag, London

(1993) Towards a Theory of the Artificial, CYBERNETICS AND HUMAN KNOWING, The Royal School of Librarianship Odense-Kopenhagen, 2,2

(1999) The Theory of the Artificial, Intellect Books, Exeter

(2000) The Culture of the Artificial (M. Negrotti, Guest Editor), “AI & society”, Springer-Verlag, London (14, 3-4, 2000)

(2002) Naturoids. On The Nature of the Artificial, World Scientific Publishing Company, New Jersey

(2004) (ed.) Yearbook of the Artificial, Models in Contemporary Sciences, Peter Lang Academic Publisher, Bern

(2004) Naturoids. From representations to concrete realizations, “Pragmatics & cognition”, John Benjamins, 12, 1

(2005) ‘Artificiality’, entry in ESTE (Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics), C. Mitcham, MacMillan, Farmington, Vol. I

(2006) (ed.) Yearbook of the Artificial, Cultural Dimensions to the User, Peter Lang Academic Publisher, Bern

(2006) Systems, models and observation levels, proceedings, of “International Workshop on Ecological Informatics of Chaos and Complex Systems”, TUAT, Tokyo (also in Japanese)

(2007) Information to control, knowledge to decide, “Artificial intelligence & society”, Springer-Verlag, London

(2008) Why the Future Doesn't Come From Machines. Unfounded Prophecies and the Design of Naturoids, “Bulletin of science, technology & society”, Sage,Vol. 28, No. 4, 289-298

(2008) Discussion of Lee Spetner’s paper ‘The evolution controversy and randomness’, in “Divine action and natural selection science”, Faith And Evolution, New Jersey, World Scientific

(2008) Where the future doesn’t come from, “Design issues”, MIT Press., 24, 4

(2009) Nature, Technology and Naturoids: A New Cross-Talk, “Journal of environmental thought and education”, SSETE, Tokyo, 3, 2009, 89-96

(2010) Naturoids: from a dream to a paradox, “Futures”, Elsevier, 42, 7, Sept. 2010, 759-768

(2010) Designing the Artificial: An Interdisciplinary Study in R.Buchanan, D.Doordan, V. Margolin (ed.), “The designed world”, Oxford, Berg

(2011) From Nature to Naturoids. And Back, Springer DE

Links

• IRICHS (International Research Institute of Human Centred Systems)
• Artificial Intelligence and Society (Springer-Verlag, London)
• Yearbook of the Artificial (Peter Lang, Bern)
• ESTE (Encyclopedia of Science, Technology and Ethics), C. Mitcham, MacMillan, Farmington
• The Theory of the Artificial, Intellect Books, Exeter
• Massimo Negrotti Personal site

References

1. ^ (1991) (ed.) Understanding the artificial: on the future shape of A.I., Springer-Verlag, London
2. ^ (1993) Towards a Theory of the Artificial, CYBERNETICS AND HUMAN KNOWING, The Royal School of Librarianship Odense-Kopenhagen, 2,2
3. ^ (1999) The Theory of the Artificial, Intellect Books, Exeter
4. ^ (2002) Naturoids. On The Nature of the Artificial, World Scientific Publishing Company, New Jersey
5. ^ Ball, P., "Nature versus Naturoids", in Nature Materials, 8, 1, January 2009
6. ^ Ball, P., "Shaking hands with robots", in Nature Materials, 8, 860, January 2009
7. ^ (2010) Designing the Artificial: An Interdisciplinary Study in R.Buchanan, D.Doordan, V. Margolin (ed.), “The designed world”, Oxford, Berg
8. ^ (2006)(ed.) Yearbook of the Artificial, Cultural Dimensions to the User, Peter Lang Academic Publisher, Bern