Self-Organization in Social Technical Systems

What is a social technical system?

two options:

1) A technical system that supports social interaction of humans (for some purpose)

Here, units are humans, interactions are mediated by technical system, total is "social system".

- Wikipedia: technically supported stigmergy-like interaction of humans to create a common knowledge base - Recommendation systems (evaluating quality of bought items in online stores) - Social networking (facebook, studiVZ,

2) A social system emerging from interactions of technical units (for some purpose or purpose-free)

Here, units are technical systems (e.g. robots), interactions are such that total system is "social".

- Can a technical system be social (in the sense of helping each other)? - swarms of robots