Self-regualted Learning within the Personal Learning Environment (SRL⏋PLE)

This is just a short reflection on the overlap between my newest article and and article by Esposito titled Artificial Communication? The Production of Contingency by Algorithms.

In September this year, I published an article titled Digital media observed: Distribution Media or Communication Partner (transl. from Danish)¹. In this article, I discuss how we, from a system-theoretical perspective, can understand communication when using digital media. My argument was that computes that use AI and Machine Learning can be observed as “communication partners.”

Yesterday I searched for “interesting stuff” on De Gruyter (part of the query was “zettelkasten” (don’t ask…)). Here I found an article written by Elena Esposito titled Artificial Communication? The Production of Contingency by Algorithms². To my surprise, Esposito makes the same argument as I do in my article (laid out in a more professional/academic form, of course).

One of the issues is the concept of double contingency and whether it should be present on both sides (two psychic systems engaging in communication knowing that they don’t know what the other is thinking and has to decide on an action). The problem in the context of digital media is that a computer (or as Esposito writes: the algorithm) does not operate consciously like the psychic system. The question is, therefore, if communication can emerge in this situation.

Esposito even referes to the article Kommunikation mit Zettelkästen: Ein Erfahrungsbericht by Niklas Luhmann³. Something that I omitted in my article because I did not dare.

With my new knowledge, I feel the need to write an article about this topic again.