11/5/13. Kevin Slavin, MIT assistant professor and founder of the Playful Systems group at the MIT Media Lab, joined John Hockenberry on The Takeaway today for a segment titled "A Crack at Algorithms: Bridging the Gap Between Humans and Computers.
It was a fascinating discussion and one of the things that struck me was the fact that it was a very Future-ish discussion. Future-ish in that they were discussing how math and technology affect humans, as well as how science and technology can only take us so far in exploring new projects, products, or ideas...at some point, the human element has to come back into the design process. Slavin puts forth that math and algorithms are shaping society in many ways and even goes so far as to call it the 'physics of culture', which is fascinating in itself. But there's still a small element of human unpredictability that has to be acknowledged and incorporated in new projects, products, and ideas in order for them to succeed.
HA! We do need science, design, AND culture to shape the future.