CT&AI
COMPLEX THINKING & AI
The acceleration of increasingly more complex interactions between a multiplicity of natural, biological, social and technological risks in multiple ecosystemic levels is driving multiple social and ecological crises, with impacts at both local and global levels. This increases the pressures on knowledge production systems to generate relevant understanding of the processes underlying such crises and on how to design and manage interventions and change processes. Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) open new possibilities for the management of and access to large amounts of information, which may be relevant for generating more complex knowledge. Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT have also opened new possibilities for Human-AI interaction towards systems of augmented intelligence. On the other hand, the practice of complex thinking, organisationally congruent with the properties that organise complex natural and social systems, has been proposed as a mode of thinking more capable of tackling complex problems and of leading to more ecosystemically positive and sustainable outcomes. It is hypothesised that more complex modes of thinking may lead to creative and abductive leaps capable of guiding effective interventions and the process of managing change in “real-world” complex systems, in conditions of uncertainty and risk. The CT & AI project will explore possibilities and limits of the interaction of a framework for the practice and promotion of Complex Thinking (CT) with AI tools based on LLMs (e.g. Chat GPT, Gemini). It will develop and evaluate preliminary protocols to guide the integration of methods and tools for promoting CT with the use of AI tools towards generating complex understandings for practice and research. Finally it will explore stakeholders (policy-makers, practitioners, scientists/academics) stances regarding the use of AI in relation to CT.
Overall, the Complex Thinking & AI project aims at:
A1. Exploring the possibilities and limits of the interaction of a framework for the practice and promotion of Complex Thinking (CT) with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools based on Large Language Models (LLMs).
A2. Developing preliminary protocols to guide the integration of methods and tools for promoting CT with the use of AI tools in generating complex understandings to support practice and research.
Specifically, it will:
O1. Develop a general protocol to guide the integration of CT with LLMs (e.g. ChatGPT, Gemini) for practice and research;
O2. Develop protocols for an LLM-assisted Relatoscope method 1 and tool for promoting CT, e.g. through “prompt engineering”;
O3. Develop protocols to guide the use of the AI tools informed by CT (complementary to O2);
O4. Map the complexity of the responses/conceptualisations resulting from AI assisted-CT guided processes;
O5. Explore the requirements for the selection, use and/or design of visualisation tools to support effective CT-AI interaction;
O6. Identify critical specifications and requirements towards the development of AI-assisted software, interface(s) and visualisation tool(s) for CT;
O7. Explore the representations and stances of different stakeholders (scientists, citizens, practitioners, policy-makers) regarding the use of AI tools in practice and research and the impact of a training workshop on AI and protocols for CT on those.
School for Business and Society, University of York
LASIGE and Departamento de Informática, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal