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Smart Sensors, Cyborgs, and Cybernetics: A Critical Reading of Smart City Technologies

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Human Dynamics Research in Smart and Connected Communities

Part of the book series: Human Dynamics in Smart Cities ((HDSC))

Abstract

The utilization of digital technologies has left traces about their users’ behaviors. Collectively these digital traces reflect the status of cities at any given time point; and the technology users become smart sensors capable of generating and acting upon information. The synergy between people and technology transforms each individual and creates cyborgs. Cities traversed by cyborgs become sensible. In this article, cybernetics as a framework has been applied for examining the implications of this phenomenon. Twitter data are used exemplarily to illustrate the complexity of cyborg identities. Twitter data as one type of many digital traces have helped shed light on spatiotemporal activities, but their producers’ identities are complex. Cybernetics is implemented to formalize the relations between cities and their dwellers as communication and feedback loops. Then second order cybernetics is implemented for a critical reading of smart city technologies.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    According to Twitter company about information at https://about.twitter.com/company.

  2. 2.

    https://twitter.com/Holoholo_WG.

  3. 3.

    http://www.wired.com/2014/12/deep-learning-renormalization/.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviews for their constructive comments and suggestions. Also, the author would like to express his appreciation to Drs. Shih-Lung Shaw and Daniel Sui for their great effort to organize this timely book.

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  1. Department of Geography, University of Wyoming, 1000 E University Ave, Laramie, WY, 82071, USA

    Chen Xu

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  1. Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA

    Shih-Lung Shaw

  2. Department of Geography, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA

    Daniel Sui

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Xu, C. (2018). Smart Sensors, Cyborgs, and Cybernetics: A Critical Reading of Smart City Technologies. In: Shaw, SL., Sui, D. (eds) Human Dynamics Research in Smart and Connected Communities. Human Dynamics in Smart Cities. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73247-3_6

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