Internet

Kostinsky

The mechanistic picture of the world, and its inherent method of cognition -analysis, was a background substantiation of many simplified models in biology, economics, and public life. Under the influence of new scientific areas and socio-political cataclysms, researchers in different fields found that there are objects that must be considered and studied entirely. The properties of the whole could not be obtained, knowing the properties of its parts. Scientists came to the conclusion that they are dealing with a new class of objects, which they called systems. The first science of systems was Cybernetics.

It was in cybernetics that they focused on three decades, most efforts and hopes for solving system problems, many of which were later spread in other scientific and technical areas.

Like any serious cultural phenomenon, Cybernetics had a forerunner, but the date of her birth was known for sure. In 1948, the book of Mathematics Norbert Winer "Cybernetics or management and communication in living organisms and a machine" was published. The book immediately had a huge success, and became a scientific bestseller.

The name of the new discipline was given, according to Wiener, as follows: “I worked hard, but from the very first steps I was puzzled by the need to come up with a title in order to indicate the object that I wrote about. The only thing I could choose the Greek word Kybernetes, denoting“ steering ”,“ navigator ””. Curious, Winer did not know that the word Kybernetes in the 19th century used Andre Ampper in his vast work "Essays on the Philosophy of Sciences." Amper's cybernetics was the science of non -independent and entered, as an integral part in the "politics". This time they changed places. At the time of her second birth, the Cinderella turned from Cinderella into a princess and claimed an absorption, or at least the coordination of other sciences. Previously, such a generalizing role belonged only to philosophy.

Here is what Norbert Winer wrote in 1956: “Sociology and anthropology are primarily the science of relations, therefore they are included in the cybernetics. The private section of sociology, called the economy and differs from others, is mainly more accurate use of numbers for the values under consideration, is also the section of cybernetics due to the cybernetic nature of sociology itself. Almost from the very beginning it became clear to me that new concepts of communication and communications and communications and communication concepts and communications and communications and communications and communications and communication Management entail a new understanding of man and human knowledge about the universe and society ”(end of the quote). The term "sociology", as can be seen from the text, Winer understood more widely, as "social sciences".

What are the new directions, summarized Cybernetics? There is always a temptation to try to describe events from the perspective of the "ultimate reason." An example of such an attempt is found in the magazine "Computerra" in the presentation of Mikhail Vannah ... Cybernetics began their development with an event that Americans call the day of dishonor. Torpedo bombers and dive bombers raised from the aircraft carriers secretly approached the American Pacific Fleet of his nuclei: four battleships were sunk and four were hard. It was necessary to dramatically increase the efficiency of anti -aircraft weapons of battleships, where the gun barrel needs to be brought up with an attacking aircraft, the group of Dr. Winer was carried out with the help of a computing device. "Cybernetics" .

Indeed, Norbert Wiener worked on the optimal models of anti-aircraft-gaping systems. But this activity helped him only better realize the significant role of feedback in management systems, and make sure that his earlier assumptions are that an increase in the accuracy of, it would seem, of ordinary devices and computational methods is limited by the instability of their behavior. This important result showed that the fundamental principle of the uncertainty of several parameters of the system is simultaneously fair not only in the field of microworld and quantum mechanics.

We will follow briefly to the real background of the creation of cybernetics.

Of course, the forerunner of the systematic approach was statistical physics. The American physicist Willard Gibbs was the first to note that a change in the states of the dynamic system can be represented as a probability flow from one area to another. It is in line with this stream, like a kayak along a mountain river, that events are rushing. The accuracy of their determination is determined by the width and the profile of the current.

A significant role in the formation of cybernetics was played by Claude Shannon’s research on the “information theory”. Shannon studied at the Massachusetts Technological Institute, where Winer taught for many years and collaborated with him. "Theory of information" is a loud but not accurate name. It completely does not concern the content of the transmitted message. The main achievements of the theory of information was a single representation in the binary form of zero and units of not only numbers, but also letters, signs, and the parameters of the graphic image. Such a simplification made it possible to establish and take into account the flows of heterogeneous characters between various devices and streamline their collection, storage and processing. Thanks to the “information theory”, it was possible to ensure the reliability of the transmission of messages through unreliable channels, their coding and decryption.

Only a disheveled scientist with glasses and a white robe from a fantastic film can create a new direction alone. Cybernetics is not only a consequence of the development of the natural sciences, but also the fruit of the coordinated efforts of many scientists. The first step along the way was the unofficial seminar organized by Norbert and Arturo Rosenbet in Princeton, where mathematicians, neurophysiologists, engineers, and computer specialists gathered. As a result of joint discussions, they "began to speak the same language, whose dictionary contained terms borrowed from both the engineers - signalmen and from automatic regulation specialists and neurophysiologists." The second step was a series of meetings, begun in 1944 in New York with the support of the Macy Foundation. A group of psychiatrists, sociologists, and anthropologists joined the discussion of management problems. The third step was a joint study of the work of the brain and the human nervous system by a group of scientists from the Massachusetts Technological and National Institute of Cardiology under the leadership of Winer and Rosenbet.

Only after all these efforts, Norbert Winer's talent allowed him to proclaim a new field of knowledge, which he successfully called cybernetics.

The new science really has made a revolution. She concentrated not at physical objects, but on "relations between them." The view of society as a multi -level cybernetic system made it possible to describe in scientific terms such key concepts as ideals, goals and objectives. The thinking of the technical elite depended on the scientific substantiation of concepts that in many ways, thanks to cybernetics, it was realized what great and real achievements were liberal institutions of power, civil society and what serious creative work requires their maintenance and development. From the point of view of cybernetics, the destruction of market or legal relations is fraught with a much greater danger than the destruction of cars, railways or power lines.

Cybernetics saved the concepts of "hierarchy" and "bureaucracy" from emotional load. It became obvious that large systems cannot be organized otherwise than hierarchically. Hierarchy is an organization, it is a structure that can, however, change dynamically and not be stiff or necessarily oppressing. If a rigid hierarchy leads to ossification and totalitarianism, then the absence of a hierarchy is a pile of crushed stone, ruins, a crowd.

In addition to philosophical achievements, cybernetics also had very specific successes. Thanks to her, there was a cross exchange of ideas between the study of operations, the theory of optimal control, the theory of machine guns, the theory of algorithms. All this fruitfully influenced the subsequent development of electronically computing machines

But from the new science they began to wait much more. This is the fault and careless forecasts of some cybernets, willingly picked up by journalists. In many ways, publications appeared, where the same revolution was promised in the field of mental activity, which cars were made by replacing physical labor. Here is, here, it seemed, a computer translation, recognition of images and speech, search and even generating the necessary knowledge in large databases, self -learning automatic machines should have appeared and, finally, the most important thing is artificial intelligence. Cybernetics made an ideological revolution - showing that life and thinking are systemic phenomena and, therefore, can fundamentally be implemented on a different material basis. Awareness of this event gave rise to a real avalanche of science fiction works, where everything began to think from robots that go out of control of people, and self-organized mold to the ocean on the distant planet Solaris. But the development and creation of intellectual devices was delayed, which at first did not cause much fears.

The rapidly developing automation of production processes and conventional electron-digital computing machines came to the fore. Gradually, in the mass consciousness of cybernetics, automation began to be understood, and under artificial intelligence a computer filled with algorithmic programs. Faculties of computational mathematics and cybernetics appeared in higher educational institutions. Strange as it may seem, many courses on computational methods were read on them, but there was no cybernetics course. The first romantic stage in the development of management science ended.

Its inconsistency is visible from the first lines of the preface to the “small encyclopedia about the big cybernetics”, published in 1970: “Our age can be called centuries of cybernetics. Today it is no longer possible to imagine science, technology, industry without electronic computers, automatic machines, without new methods that the science of management gives a person.”

Radio "Freedom", the program "Seventh Continent". Vadim Alekseev will talk about some research and Internet statistics over the past year.

Alekseev

At the end of the year, it is customary to summarize. Let's talk about the research of the Internet conducted in the past year. The rapidly increasing role of the World Wide Computer Network forces many research companies to deploy their activities on the Internet. Among these there are consulting, sociological and research companies of a wide profile.

The problem of various kinds of research and calculations on the network is the reliability and objectivity of the data obtained. This is primarily due to the technologies used and calculation methods. For example, statistics of site visits. The number of appeals to the server can be calculated by the title page, but then those who get to the server are not through the title page will not be calculated. The same situation with virtual names: several people can be hidden under the same name, as vice versa, one person can use several names. Another problem is the rules of conducting Internet research. Andrei Milekhin (project of monitoring.ru ") at the recent seminar of the Russian Public Center of the Internet Technology (Rocyitis) proposed introducing such uniform rules: 1) Any research should be fundamentally open (methodology, quotas, sample, and data arrays); 2) create a depository containing data from various research companies. (Of course, after a certain deadline, i.e., after that, that is, after that, that is, after How information will begin to lose commercial attractiveness.)

Let us dwell briefly on the methods of conducting research and studying the Internet. The first of them is the traditional method of representative sample of the population for sociology. In particular, GFK MR, thus, in the 98th year made an assessment of the volume and number of the Russian audience of the Internet. Another method is the survey of visitors to the website of the research company. As a variant of this method, you can highlight a survey of the target audience, which regularly conducts the same "GFK MR". And finally, another method is an automatic collection of statistical data about the site visitors.

One project of studying the Internet audience of Russia is mentioned-it is called "Web-Vector". It was introduced at the already mentioned seminar Rocyte Group of Companies Comcon. This project aims to provide the most reliable data on the main characteristics of the audience. Studies are conducted quarterly in 40 cities of Russia, 7,800 people are interviewed, which represent the population of the cities of Russia with a number of more than 250 thousand people. The authors of the project argue that the accuracy of such a study reaches 1 percent in relation to the entire population.

I suppose it would be interesting to look at some figures of the collected statistics. What we will do now, comparing and complementing the information with the results of the census of the Russian-speaking Internet settlement held at the recent festival, which I talked about last month. Let's start with some numbers characterizing the situation on the Internet as a whole.

The total number of people in the world with access to the Internet, according to Global Research, is about 230 million people, of which 57 percent are an English -language audience, almost 29 percent - speaking in European languages. All this is not more than 4 percent of the world's population. Moreover, among the English -speaking part of the population, the number of users is about 40 percent of their total number.

The United States of America occupies a leading position with a huge margin: there are more than 110 million users, in Japan in second place - a little more than 18 million. Further, the top ten countries-users of the Internet include: Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Australia, Brazil, China, France and closes the list of South Korea, where more than 5.5 million people use the Internet. This statistics are shown by Internet.com.

In Russia, only 2.5 million people use the Internet more than 1 time in 3 months (this, by the way, is only one and a half percent of the country's population). According to Komcon analysts, it is precisely such a frequency of use that can, at least to some extent, talk about regularity. Let me remind you that recently we called the figure of 1.7 million people with you, however, the frequency of use of the network in the latter case was significantly higher. Among the participants in the census, women were only 19 percent. According to some other estimates, including Comcon data, women are about 30 percent among the Internet users.

What is the composition of the audience by age? According to the census, users under the age of 15 are a little more than 2 percent; However, even fewer those who are over 55 are only one and a half percent. This age group was in the minority, according to Comcon data, although this statistics indicate that there are almost three such users three times more. The leading position according to the Comcon's census and research also coincided: this is an age group from 25 to 34 years. There are about 35 percent of them, the census claims, according to the Komcon only a little more than 28.

The fact that the Internet is most interesting is very interesting at work - almost half according to the census and 55 percent, according to the Komcon. Next are home users. Here, estimates differ significantly: 38 percent of the census, and about 27 from the COMCON study.

It is very characteristic that among the participants of the census 81 percent indicated that they have a higher education

The following numbers show the level of use of certain Internet services in large cities (this is the information of the comon): 2.2 % of the country's population use e -mail; Web - 2.5; other Internet services - 2 %. In total, in large cities of network users there are 3.5 % or in absolute numbers of almost 1.9 million people.

The social picture of Internet users in the presentation of the Komcon - specialists, managers, students; The leaders are the leaders - almost 19 percent and employees of the scientific sphere - half a percent less. A slightly different picture was formed as a result of the census. Here, leadership in the field of communications and telecommunications - 14.5 %, then (that I, just do not be offended, was extremely surprised) trade and catering workers - a little more than 9 %, and only the third place of the media and the advertising business - exactly 9 %.

I saw another curious figure in the results of the census - only 69 percent of those who took part in it have a computer at home. A depressing indicator for evaluating our society, I will tell you. But there are and, it seems to me, encouraging numbers - more than 40 percent have a car.

And finally, a hit parade of interests on the Internet. I will name the first five in both research. According to the comcon, the software leads - they are interested in 38 percent and there is growth here; This is followed by games - 24 percent, then music - 23 percent, and a decline in interest is noticed here; The next position of the economy news is 22 percent, and this topic is experiencing an increase in interest; замыкает пятерку такая общая категория как развлечения - 16 процентов, но развлекаться в сети людям хочется все меньше и меньше. А вот, что показала перепись: с большим отрывом на первом месте находятся компьютеры и Интернет - 65 процентов; затем общество и политика - 45 процентов; наука и технологии на третьем месте - 42 процента; на 10 процентов меньше интересуются музыкой и шоу-бизнесом; на пятом месте технологии - около 30 процентов.

И еще одно любопытное замечание исследователей аудитории Интернета. Пользователи сети относятся к рекламе значительно лояльнее тех, кто о сети знает лишь понаслышке.

Мой рассказ был бы неполным без прогнозов. Computer Industry Almanac предсказывает рост Интернет-населения во всем мире почти на 100 миллионов человек. В Соединенных Штатах пользователей Интернета должно стать более 130 миллионов, и они по-прежнему будет лидировать по этому показателю. Значительный рост числа пользователей предсказывают некоторым европейским странам, как, например, Германии, Франции, Италии. Этот же прогноз утверждает, что Россия в 2000 году войдет в первые 15 стран-пользователей Интернета. У нас, утверждает Computer Industry Almanac число Интернет-населения увеличится в два раза и достигнет 5 миллионов человек. Так что в нашей семье ожидается заметное пополнение. С новым Интернетовским годом вас, друзья!

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