Project Cybersin

[gL.edu] This article gathers contributions by Felix Ziepl, developed within the context of the Conceptual clarifications about "Utopias and the Information Society", under the supervisión of J.M. Díaz Nafría.

Abstract

The following Article will deal with the Cybersin project, this project was invented in 1971 in Chile by Stafford Beer. Bevor we look a little bit closer in what’s it all about the cybersin Project, we must look a little bit into the History of Chile and how this very Cyberutopian project came about and how it could potentially solve many problems but was eventually destroyed in the End. After that we will compare it with other utopias from the perfect social order and we will see if there are connections between them. After that we also have to look at the dystopic side of this project.

History

In the year of 1970 the socialist Salvador Allende was elected as the new President of Chile with only a slight lead. His Goal was to eliminate the social inequality which was increasing extremely at that time and in the process create a new kind of socialism, different from that of the already existed like in the Soviet Union. When Allende was elected, Chile was not in a very good State: out of 10 million inhabitants, 1.5 million children were considered malnourished, 500,000 families were homeless, and unemployment was 8.8%. Land ownership was concentrated among a small upper class: 80% of the land was in the hands of 4.2% of the landowners . To reach his goal Allende´s economic policy was the nationalization of mineral resources without compensation, the expropriation of large foreign companies, the banks, and an agrarian reform in which 20,000 km² of land was handed over from large landowners to farmers . With this large changes, he wanted to make Chile more independent from the rest of the world, especially from the USA. In 1971 he also nationalized the Coal mining and the textile industry and last but not least he nationalized the Copper mining parts, which were at this time mainly in American hand. But with this massive nationalization of the Chilean economy, they had a problem, they did not know how to transform this complex industry into an effective planned economy. For this reason, "an innovative system of cybernetic information management and transfer has been developed" with the name “Cybersin-Project”.

Cybernetics

To give a short definition of Cybernetics and Management Cybernetics in order to help understanding the subject. The core concept of cybernetics is circular causality or feedback—where the observed outcomes of actions are taken as inputs for further action in ways that support the pursuit and maintenance of particular conditions, or their disruption . The definition of Stafford Beer for his idea of Management cybernetics is, that it is the application of cybernetics to management and organizations .

Cybersin-Project

Overview

When Chile nationalised most of the country’s economy and didn’t knew how this complex state industry can be effectively steered the Head of the Economic Development Authority Fernando Flores feared, that the economy of Chile could collapse, and his country would sink into Chaos. But Flores had an idea on how to deal with this Problem. He wanted to use a new science which became popular around World War 2, called cybernetics. To implement this new technology Fernando Flores seeks help by Stafford Beer. Stafford Beer is an internationally renowned management consultant and founder of management cybernetics . With his new technic he had earned a fortune. When Flores hopes that with cybernetics, they could face the upcoming problem which Chiles economy was facing. Stafford Beer was thrilled by the chance to test his ideas in real life on such a big scale. In 1971 they started the work on project Cybersin. At first Stafford Beer made a cybernetic model of Chiles economy. This should show how all the different parts of the economy were connected within a lager System. They also wanted that the different parts were able to communicate easily with each other. They thought that computers were the best way to deal with this issue.

Figure 1: Viable System Model (source: Mouhib et al 2020)

The Viable System Model

As a basic idea for the Cybersin project is the idea of the Viable System Model which has been developed by Beer´s “THE BRAIN OF THE FIRM”. The Viable System Model is a model of the organizational structure of any viable or autonomous system. A viable system is any system organized in such a way as to meet the demands of surviving in the changing environment. One of the prime features of systems that survive is that they are adaptable . According to Stafford Beer, this Model has 5 Levels which are existing in every Organization and in every organism. The first 3 levels (1-3) of this Model are responsible for the operations of the day. Level 4 is looking for response to external and future demands. System 5 deals with maintaining the balance between systems 1-3 and 4 and thus give policy directives which maintain the organization as a viable entity . If we take a closer look, in this Model system 1 is responsible for the production and is the operative unit. It provides the information about the input and output operations of the process based on the production system and local environmental information . System 2 is containing the information channels and is coordinating the information flow of the primary activities in System 1 so that they can communicate between each other. System 3 represents the structures and internal controls to set the rules, resources, and responsibilities of system 1, and to establish interaction with systems 4 and 5 . System 4 is made up of bodies that are responsible for looking outwards to the environment to monitor how the organization needs to adapt to remain viable . At last, there is system 5, which is the Supreme decision-making unit, if System 3 and 4 cannot agree on a common course, System 5 makes the final decision. if system 5 supports the decision of system 3 and 4 there is no need for system 5 to intervene.

How to make it happen

Stafford Beer and his Team had to face many problems, because it was 1970 and so they only were able to get on computer for the whole project. Their Solution was to use telex Machines which related to the phone line to do the job. By doing this, they were able to communicate with each other. According to Eden Medina Project Cybersin basically consisted of four small Projects. These are Cybernet, Cyberstride, Checo and the Opsroom.

Cybernet

Cybernet was the information Network, which was set up to communicate between the companies and the Government. Therefore, they expanded the telex network to include all the nationalized firms so that they created a national communication network. Actually, this was supposed to be a tool for real-time economic control, but in reality, each company could only transfer data once a day. Then it was processed by a team of engineers and subsequently sent to the operations rooms. Where it was processed and after that it was send back to the ECOM from where the information was sent to the companies.

Cyberstride

This is the name of the Software design of the Cybersin Project. Its function was to process incoming information from the companies and turn it into predefined variables. Information was transmitted and received by Telex machines and processed by an IBM 360 computer . Thy wanted the information which thy sent to the Ops room to be easy to understand. They created Members of the Cyberstride team created ‘quantitative flow charts of activities within each enterprise that would highlight all important activities’, including a parameter for ‘social unease . The software was also able to predict production trend by looking into historical data and thereby prevent problems before they even began. If such a Problem occurred, the Manager of the affected firm was informed so they could deal with the issue.

Checo

This stands for Chilean Economy and its main course was to make models of the Chilean Economy and simulations about its future behavior. The simulation program used the DYNAMO compiler developed by MIT Professor Jay Forrester. This Data appeared on the so-called Future Screen in the control room. It was used as a tool to make medium- and long-term decisions. The big breakthrough came when they found a way to establish a real time communications system, transcending the time problem established by exposure to the teletypes .

Figure 2: Cybersin's operations room, called "opsroom" (source: WikiMedia).

Opsroom

This operation room was the physical interface of the Cybersin Project. The hexagonal room included seven Chairs, which had a cup holder for a glass of whiskey and several buttons which were connected with the monitors. At the Walls these monitors were showing the collected data from the nationalized companies. In the Opsroom, all industries were homogenized by a uniform system of iconic representation, meant to facilitate the maximum extraction of information by an individual with a minimal amount of scientific training . Sadly, this futuristic Room never came into action.

The first test for the System

In October 1972 the cybersin project had to take its first test. The country faced a big crisis which was initiated by the USA. The USA didn’t want a socialist state in Latin America while the cold war was at its peak. Therefore, the CIA organized a truck Strike in Chile, which in a country with a length of 4,270 km makes it very difficult to send supplies from one end to the other. This strike threatens the survival of the government, so despite that the project wasn’t finished, they decided to use the already existing Cybernet System. With the help of that System, they managed to get the food supplies where they were needed the most with the few remaining government loyal truck drivers. This proved the great success and functionality of the project, even though it was not fully operational. Stafford Beer became more and more concerned about the risk of Cybersin as it grew beyond its original goals of economic regulation and expanded to political-structural transformation. He feared that Cybersyn could prove dangerous if only individual parts of it were used and if it was not yet completed. Because if the invention is dismantled and the tools used are not the tools we made, they could become instruments of oppression .

The end of Project Cybersin

Unfortunately, with help from the USA or to be more specific from the CIA, who does not want to tolerate socialist success, the political right wing in Chile was gaining more and more power. In the following the right wing openly plans to overthrow the government. On September 9, 1973, Allende personally orders The Operations Room to be moved from Cybersyn to the Presidential Palace. Two days later, General Pinochet and his allies bomb the palace. They overthrow Allende and end the experiment of democratic socialism. Project Cybersyn is destroyed . 17 years of dictatorship begin for Chile in which many people died or went missing. Allende took his own live on the day the presidential palace was bombed, and Flores was imprisoned.

Conclusion

If we look back in the past, there are a few Utopian ideas which sound like the Cybersin Project. For example, there is Adolphe Quetelet, who tried to calculate with the help of statistic what the average man needs and who needed more of something or who needed less. His goal was to help against inequality. This sounds familiar with the Cybersin project, where the nationalized firms communicate with each other about what is needed, so that they can respond to the needed demand. Another similar Utopia is the New Atlantis (1626) from Francis Bacon, in which the House of Salomon has various occupations and functions for its employees. If we read a little bit closer there are some who collect all the data and analyze them. This sound very similar to the Opsroom of the Cybersin Project, in which the experts were supposed to sit an analyze the data to make the best decisions. The Cyberutopian Side is very much shown in this article, but there is another on by Herman Hollerith. He wanted to collect the data with machines, to see what is needed just like it was done in the Cybersin project, but with a little bit older technology. At the end we also must look at the Dystopian side. I pointed out the dystopian view of Beer himself earlier in the section “The first test for the System” but there is another one by Aldous Huxley in his Book Brave New World from 1932. In this Book the people are born and must stay in hierarchy classes, but they are brainwashed so that they are happy with their place. This is the exact opposite of the Cybersin project, which aims to help people by analysing what is needed, thus providing opportunities to rise and develop. I think the sentence” These utopias show that the possibility for other worlds is theoretically feasible, although for high prices, but, simply just impossible.” from the article of “other worlds are possible” in the perfect order section sums that up quite good. In my opinion, this project was a great idea and I wish we could have seen how it would have developed over a much longer period of time and especially with today's technology such as artificial intelligence. But of course, I am also aware of the opinion that this technology and this system could very easily be misused, as it also offers a lot of potential for this and thus could have led to a much more dystopian future.