AI & SOCIETY,VOL.

2, 113-120(t988) © 1988Springer-VerlagLondonLimited

Artificial Intelligence: A Contribution to Systems Theories of

Sociology

Achille Ardigo
University of Bologna, Italy

ABSTRACT
The aim of my contribution is to try to analyse some points of similarity and difference between
post-Parsonian social systems theory models for sociology- - with special reference to those of W.
Buckley, F.E. Emery and N. Luhmann-- and expert systems models1from Artificial Intelligence.
I keep specificallyto post-Parsonian systems theories within sociology because they assume some
postulates and criteria derived from cybernetics and which are at the roots of AI. I refer in
particular to the fundamental relevance of the system-environment relationship in both sociology
and AI.

KEYWORDS
artificial intelligence, sociology, expert systems, systemic sociology, social interaction, human-
machine interaction

1 A NEW SCIENCE OF INTERFACE

My proposition is that AI program designers, especially in the field of expert systems, are
now showing a dynamic and critical attitude versus any monotonic logic and machine-
centred approaches of earlier researchers. There is an ever increasing tendency to design
the architecture of expert systems in a way which encourage frequent interrogation and
thus to enhance the user's interaction with the 'intelligent' machine. This increasing focus
on flexibility of design and the dynamics of interaction between human and machine
marks an important point of departure from the conventional viewpoint.
A number of research centres in the West today are facing up to the challenge of AI
and attempting to develop its potential for improving human-machine interaction on the
user side and to develop a new 'Science of the Interface'. 2 If a comparison between AI
systems and certain sociosystemic theories should prove fruitful, then sociologists should
be able to learn a great deal from the methodologies of expert system design. One
114 Achille Ardigo

particular aim might be to build up or transcribe second generation sociological theories

which could then be applied to predict implications of AI systems which would otherwise
not be foreseen by systems designers.
The basic assumption is that there is an increasing need to develop a sociology of open
systems. This might provide sociology with a means of coming to understand a society
which is witnessing growth in its sociotechnical contexts, where people using 'intelligent'
machines are creating new sociocultural and sociopsychological dynamics. 3 What we
might hope for is something like Interactive Communication Planning (ICP),a which was
the subject of Gabriella Tonfoni's recent 'Intelligenzia artificiale, comportamento e
eommunicazione' (Artificial Intelligence, Behaviour and Communication). 5

2 POST-PARSONS SOCIOSYSTEMIC THEORY AND EXPERT SYSTEMS: ISSUES

OF HUMAN-MACHINE INTERACTION

There is another relevant factor which prompts me to compare structure and functioning
of post-Parsonian sociosystemic theory with structure and functionirg of AI expert
systems, and it belongs entirely within systemic sociology. Today's widespread develop-
ment of expert systems and ICAI (Intelligent Computer Assisted Instruction) and their
diversification into different fields of application can be studied by the sociologist also
within the context of the systemic sub-theory of functional equivalents for complexity
selection. I believe that this approach has not yet been applied to the study of
human/intelligent machine interaction.
Before proceeding, however, it is necessary to establish whether such comparisons are
reasonable or even plausible..I would argue that this is so for the following reasons:
i) Both the terms of comparison are products of ability to conceptualise by 'cybernetic'
and 'post-cybernetic' man. Within sociosystemic theories, this is restricted to post-
Parsonian theories and, in particular, to that of N. Luhmann.
ii) Both terms are artificial intermental products, deliberately conceived to simulate a
given reality selectively, not to reproduce it in its entirety. Sociological theories are
artificial products, according to an inherent tradition of sociological thought asserted as
long ago as 1887 by F. Toennies and through G. Simmel down to N. Luhmann. 6 But the
post-Parsonian cybernetics-influenced, sociosystemic kind of theory I refer to is not
'artificial' in this sense only, but also because it sees today's complex society as capable of
being represented and simulated through a web'of symbols and abstract communica-
tions. This was demonstrated by H.A. Simons (1969) in his book The Science~ of the
Artificial (also quoted by N. Luhmann), 7 in which he based such sciences on models, that
is on systems of abstract symbols (hence 'non-natural' sciences). He did so in order to
simplify the process of understanding the links which can be found in observable external
reality. Such models could be computer-simulated, with the consequent possibility of
obtaining new knowledge from them.
iii) The third reason is that both of the two conceptual constructions (i.e. sociological
theories and expert systems) are almost empty forms, without positive link with human
corporeal matters. They are sets of meanings (even if they are at times almost the most
exhausting and tiresome of human productions!). They are both, in fact, software.
Artificial Intelligence: A Contribution to Systems Theories of Sociology 115

3 SOCIOLOGY AND EXPERT SYSTEMS: DIFFERENCES AND DISCREPANCIES

There are, of course, also differences and discrepancies between the two intellectual
products in question:
i) The first difference is that between 'mentalistic' and 'mechanistic' products. This has
already been noted by Marvin Minsky, though we should also immediately mention
Minsky's contention that the former are convertible into the latter, s
ii) The second difference has to do with the tendentiaI dichotomy between generality and
specificity, at least for expert systems as products of Artificial Intelligence. AI systems
are emphatically designed for particular knowledge domains, whilst systems theories
have more general orientation.
iii) A third difference is that sociosystemics, like any other science, and especially social
sciences, often uses an ordinary prescientific kind of language, and it does so without too
many explications (or with such explications as to make the difference between
prescientific and technical languages thin and uneven). There is also a requirement for
symbolic ambiguity in certain terms. It is therefore no surprise when Luhmann argues
that sociosystemics should n o t b e constrained by one-way causal-logical explanations in
its analysis of complex societies. Indeed, though Luhmann's system is strictly self-
referential, his writing is flexible, discursive and protean. Designing the knowledge base
for an expert system, on the other hand, requires a much stricter and more widespread
use of definition-based conventional formulae which need to be usable for selecting
successive machine passes through chains of properties and predicates.
iv) The fourth difference is between the types of interaction which are originated by
sociosystemic theory texts and by AI expert systems respectively. This difference favours
the AI systems, which have benefited from the enrichment of cognitive and instrumental
potentialities which are derived from formalised interaction with the user. One might
argue that the traditional forms of interaction, dealt with by sociological theories, were
more open and free from constraint. But the fact is that there is considerable difficulty in
providing empirical support for these traditional forms.
Should they have to be supported, as R. Boudon ((1984)La Place du ddsordre.
Critique des thdories du changement social, PUP, Paris) claims, they must then pay the
price of being cut down to merely local and partial confirmations. Sociological theories,
in short, suffer often from the point of view of logical, formal consistency. And that must
be acknowledged even when one grants that paradoxes too often have a non-marginal
cognitive valency in social life, particularly in our present context.
The relationship between the user and the "new generation of expert system is
developing away from a viewpoint where the role of the user is merely adaptive, towards
an incremental relationship between the user and the 'intelligent' machine. By contrast,
the social systems theory of sociology, from W. Buckley to F.E. Emery and N.
Luhmann, has become more and more abstract and self-referential, with no place for
interaction between the individual and the social system outside of role performance
within the system. Nor has it considered that the users of the theory may originate such
interactive communication relationships as may from .time to time affect the inner
self-reflective core of the systems theories. Luhmann's social system is seen as open,
through changeable structures, aimed at obtaining knowledge and control of the
environment only in so far as it is totally enclosed within its self-reflecting cdre. It is
116 Achille Ardigo

founded on anonymous, preordained mechanisms selecting responses to environmental

inputs in more or less real time.
As an artificial scientific system, this type of sociological theory is, in my opinion, far
behind the epistemological line taken by interaction scientists in AI expert systems.
Although extremely productive in terms of heuristics and models, Luhmann's theory is
only an observer's product - - looking at social life from outside. Its social production
rules are, by definition, not susceptible to alteration by interaction with human or
physic/~l environments. This abstract system contains all its controls within itself. But
research work conducted by interactionists in the AI field has stressed the negative
consequences for both organisations and subjects when expert system controls are placed
on the system side only, rather than also on the user side.
The problem of revision in model making and in the use of sociological models in
interactive communication is, without doubt, vastly more difficult than the problem of
implementation of AI expert systems. This is especially so when whole complex
societies, rather than individual blocks of specialised and circumscribed scientific or
professional knowledge domains, are approached with general cognitive aims. Neverthe-
less, if various research lines on the planning of interactive communications between
programmer, AI machine and the user should yield positive and testable results, I
believe that there are bound to be favourable repercussions for a new generation of
sociosystemic theories in particular and for sociological work in general.
Sociosystemic theories might literally be transformed from their present closed state.
From being auto-poietic in their reflexive core, non-interactive and problem-solving
'machines', they could become open epistemological structures (in their reflexive cores
as elsewhere), and generators of user-to-author interaction also by employing 'intelli-
gent' machines. (It is of course to be hoped that this is brought about by inner urges in
theoretical sociological thought, even if it happens through analogical stimuli from the
world of interactive AI).

4 SOCIAL SYSTEMS AND THE ARTIFICIAL MACHINE

In a recent article which I found very interesting, if only for its pioneering character, the
author, Sanjoy Banerjee, 9 discusses the suitability of social structures for reproduction as
AI models. He puts forward suggestions to stimulate systemic interpretations of
spatiotemporally dated national social structures by means of AI computational prog-
rams. His idea is to convert the information contained in the books which expound the
relevant theories into 'knowledge bases' according to AI models. In lieu of production
rules, a hierarchy of modules would be transcribed, where individual and other people's
preferences would be stated for each social actor. This would all be done within social
interaction models, conforming to the social action double model of 'in order to' and
'because of.
The first systemic theory reproduced by Banerjee as an AI program deals with the
authoritarian, bureaucratic structure of South America as interpreted by an O'Donnell
in a book published in 1973. The structure is based on the interaction of five social
groups. The second AI-simulated systemic theory concerns China's social structure in
1927-1937, as rendered by Stockpol in 1979.
Artificial Intelligence: A Contribution to Systems Theories of Sociology 117

Banerjee concludes in both cases that this sort of AI simulation allows:

- to understand why social structures endure and
to explore how certain beliefs lead to certain actions in a given context and in different
social e n v i r o n m e n t s ' . . , and this in a way and to a degree of exploration that cannot
be achieved with other theoretic'~ methodologies in the field of social s c i e n c e s . . . ,10
Although significant, this experiment is nevertheless limited by the fact that the'AI
program is a 'simple reproduction model', with rigid objective standards for each
collective subject to achieve, with no possibility of creative contributions by the user by
applying the theory to other similar contexts. 11
At the end of his essay, the author is hopeful that such limitations can be overcome by
inserting new beliefs into the 'knowledge bases' attributed by the authors to their typical
subjects, in order to pick up simulated variations in social structure terms. One can hope,
therefore, that it might be possible to go further by converting specific sociological
theories into specific AI programs with a view to obtaining 'intelligent' simulations that
can be reproduced by more than one scholar. Now that scientism has (fortunately!)
become obsolete, this is one of the paths which might be followed to try to highlight 'bad'
cognitive paradigms or else 'bad' parts of otherwise good paradigms at an early stage of
their development.
A conceptual distinction introduced some years ago by M. Crozier and E. Freidberg 12
fits very well here, and is worth recall. In the analysis of social organisations, these two
French sociologists neatly separate (for future joint use) a real-life action system and an
abstract action system. The abstract action system is taken as the artificial product.
Through 'raisonnement systemique', t3 the observer formalises 'des construits non
formalis6s dont les r~gles sont tout ~ fait empiriques et dont les acteurs, s'ils sont plus ou
moins intuitivement conscients des r6sultats, sont tout ~ fait ignorants des m6canismes et
sont, de ce fair, incapables de les contr61er ou m6me de peser sur eux'. The resulting
specific social organisation simulation model is then, according to our authors, that of a
'machine artificielle construite pour r6soudre le probl6me qui avait 6t6 r6solu auparavant
par ce qui nous apparaissait comme un empirisme 'naturel', mais qui est en fair un autre
construit plus ancien et graduellement 'naturalis6'. 14
In referring to Simon's The Sciences of the Artificial, the authors add in a note: "what
matters in this perspective are not the distinctive features of the phenomc.non i t s e l f . . .
but the problems posed by its existence, which can be better understood through
examination of the artificial machine built to solve it'.
But the artificial machine stimulating the abstract system which in turn is fully
homogeneous to expert systems (in its artificial intellectual nature at least and irrespec-
tive of the difference between paper and magnetic supports) is not 'le syst6me d'action
concret'. 55 The real-life action system " . . . is not an a priori pattern', ~6 nor is it ' . . . a
cybernetic model'. 57 There is a real-life action system when one power relationship, or a
set of power relationships, is/are actually ascertained, because there is no power without
an organised structure. Consequently, although all real-life action systems necessarily
restrict communication, they are, nevertheless ~open systems '58 - - though of course with
varying degrees of internal and external openness. They are therefore double-
contingency systems (from the inside and from the outside) and are in fact spurred by the
opposing strategies of those who participate in their relational activities. They are
developing systems. The abstract social system somewhat mirrors the existing power
118 Achille.Ardigo

situation with its cultural and real structures and is spurred, in my interpretation, by
hosts of personal or small-group strategies intertwining in a real-time game with varying
degrees of freedom (contingencies). J9
One might say that a contemporary author already takes written or spoken arguments
into account for his own further processing, and that interaction already exists through
elementary machines such as books, magazines, conferences etc. But a total or partial
transfer from the discursiveness of a book to codification in an AI program, albeit
flexible and not entirely algorithmic codification, implies undoubted progress in the
communication of scientific ideas within the social sciences.
We can say that the types of relationships between social systems and AI expert
systems can - - by first approximation - - be dichotomised. But here is a question: can
these relational types be dichotomised in social system representations only, or in AI
expert systems as well? I think it may be possible to answer this by presenting the
following double dichotomy:
In social systems the dichotomy exists between an abstract social system and a real-life
social system in real time.
In AI expert systems the following distinctions can be made:
a) prescriptive expert systems simulating social network systems (i.e. applicable to strongly
organised social systems). They can be repeated in time according to monocausal logic
or just by following the logic of the necessary sequel of events as in the ' i f . . . t h e n . . . '
clause;
b) expert systems simulating the generative ability of high-contingency real-life social
action systems in real time.
These involve networks of concepts and relationships that are open and can be
widened and modified in time through human-machine feeding-interaction
processes. 2°
The intersection of the two dichotomies, as shown in table 1, suggests the possibility of
two relationships between social system representations of the type we may call
homogeneous. They are represented by symbols A and D. The two remaining symbols
show anomalous relationships, at least for the sake of definition.
Table 1 Sociological types of social systems versus types of AI expert systems

types of AI expert systems

social system representations rigid prescriptive open generative

abstract social system A C

real-life social system B D

Artificial Intelligence: A Contribution to SystemsTheories of Sociology 119

5 CONCLUSION

May I in conclusion venture to put forward some suggestions on the interpretation of the
table and its developments. The relationship contained in Sanjoy Banerjee's essay can,
for example, be assumed to be a 'type A' relationship. A 'type B' intersection may be the
first step towards processing second generation sociosystemic theories. As Banerjee's
essay seems also to suggest in its conclusion, this would be a further step towards an
AI-mediated interactive use of the knowledge base supplied by sociological theory in its
crystallised written form.
The most profitable, however, and the hardest way towards the conceivable hypoth-
esis of second-generation sociological theories is, without doubt, achievable through the
two remaining intersections. If these new types of sociological theorisation can be made
possible in the future, it will happen through all sorts of trial and error but basically
through 'type C' and 'type D' intersections.
At intersections C and D I can imagine a scenario where sociologists equipped with AI
programmes of the open generative type would apply themselves to specific societal
real-life contexts and problems, to 'common good' purposes, to serving communities and
groups burdened by new types of tasks. They w9uld do so repeatedly and in real time,
rather than in one-off situations within rigid pluriannual cycles.
And I hope that a more advanced form of democracy and a new form of participation
will arise from a situation where inner social group discursive processes can, time after
time, be formalised into queries for AI interactive expert systems, as well as through the
mediation of sociologists. I am thinking here of AI systems which will be able to produce
automatic or semi-automatic processes with which to enrich andxlevelop newly suggested
production rules, keeping pace with the accumulation of social discourse on decisions
and communication.

REFERENCES

1 Buckley, W. (1967). Sociology and Modern Systems Theory, see the Italian translation
published as Sociologia e teoria dei sistemi. Rosenberg and Sellier, Turin.
Emery, F.E. (ed) (1969), Systems Thinking (Penguin Books)translated into Italian (1980) as La
teoria dei sistemi. F. Angeli, Milan.
Luhmann, N. (1970).. Soziologische Aufkiirung 1. (1975), Soziologische Aufkiirung 2. (1981),
Soziologische Aufkiirung 3. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen.
AI is referred to not only as inclusive of expert systems as such, but also of ICAI systems.
2 See, among others, this recent book, Norman, D.A. and S.W. Draper (eds) (1986). User
Centered System Design, New Perspectives on Human-Computer Reaction. Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, Hillsdale.
3 Not by accident do corporate management professionals and firms in the USA already refer to
a new 'sociotechnical paradigm'. See
Hoerr, J., M.A. Pollock and D.E. Whiteside (1986). Manager Discovers the Human Side of
Automation, Business Week. Sept. 29.
4 Among recent studies see, in addition to Tonfoni's book mentioned below
Norman, D.A. and S.W. Draper (eds) (1986) mentioned above.
5 Tonfoni, G. (1987). lntelligenza artificiale, comportamento e comunicazione. Armando Edi-
tore, Rome. p25 onwards.
6 See Toennies, F. (1887). Community and Association. vol II, part 1, end of chapter xiii.
120 Achille Ardigo

7 Simon, H.A. (1984). The Sciences of the Artiflcial. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. 3rd reprint.
According to H.A. Simon, the sciences of the artificial, or 'design' sciences, are non-natural
sciences in the sense that they deal with objects which are products of human cognitive
synthesis. These products are devoid of that very reality whose appearance they imitate. As
products, they can be characterised in terms of,their functions, their purposes and their
adaptation. Once designed, they can be discussed in both interperative and descriptive terms.
See p8 of Simon's book.
The use of the computer gives excellent results in simulating these abstract objects. According to
H.A. Simon again, this type of simulation could even take the form of a mental experiment, but
it would add something new. See p17 onwards.
8 See Minsky, M. (ed.) (1982). Semantic Information Processing. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
3rd ed. p17.
9 See Banerjee, Sanjoy (1986). Reproduction of Social Structures: An Artificial Intelligence
Model, Journal of Conflict Resolution. 30, 2. 221-252.
10 lbid
11 Ibid
12 Crozier, M. and E. Friedberg (1977). L'acteur et le systdme. Seuil, Paris. p198.
13 Ibid p196.
t4 Ibid p209
15 Ibid p208
16 Ibid p209
17 Ibid p210
18 Ibid p214
19 lbid pp215-216
20 For the prescriptive-generative pair of attributes I have referred to an essay by Giuseppe
Sciortino. Modelli di rilevanza sociologica ispirati atl'intetligenza artificiate (Sociologically
Relevant Models Inspired to Artificial Intelligence). Photocopied at the Department of
Sociology of the University of Bologna, 30 April 1987.