Sustainable Self-Organisation of Socio- Techno- Ecological Systems

The intersection of technology and environment has a significant impact on the self-organisation of processes implemented by a group of social actors. That self-organisation might involve communities agreeing to select or switch between different policies, in response to, in anticipation of, or to shape environmental conditions, depending on individual or collective goals. Previously, it has been argued that the goal of sustainability can be satisfied when the intersection of economics, environmental and sociological aspects operate in a controlled and desired way. In this paper, we argue that, given developments in Artificial Intelligence, it can be satisfied if the intersection of technology, environmental and socio-politico-economic aspects of the system operate in a controlled and desired way. Then, the politics of sustainability is dependent on a hybrid two-phase cycle, one phase of self-determination, and another phase of learning and innovation, assuming adequate monitoring of the appropriate metrics for evaluation and control. Although there are many issues in modelling sustainability and dealing with uncertainty yet to be addressed, this position paper can be seen as a first step towards developing a conceptual framework for self-managing adaptive socio-techno-ecological systems.