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Category Archives: Research

OODA loops and reflective practice

12th September 2022 Mike Ryder Comment

As a university lecturer, I spend a lot of my time thinking about the process of learning and how we can equip our students with the tools and techniques to reflect upon their individual journeys and so use critical self-reflection as a means to develop and grow.

In the workplace, this is often referred to as ‘reflective practice’ – the process by which we seek to reflect and learn from our experiences

While this process can be applied to any form of work, it will perhaps be most familiar to readers working in the healthcare professions, where reflective practice is a key part of professional development.

Produce, consume, repeat: what the science fiction of Frederik Pohl tells us about consumption

4th August 2020 Mike Ryder Comment

These days it’s all but impossible to separate the things we produce from the things we consume. Whether it be working on a production line, or staying at home raising children, many of the things that we do are a form of production – whether we get paid for that work, or not. And yet at the same time, we are also consumers, for we all pay bills, we all shop for food, and we all send our children to school.

Things then become problematic when production and consumption start to blur, for we produce in order to consume, but we also consume in order to produce. Whether it be catching a bus or paying for lunch, even the process of working itself is a form of consumption, and more often than not, many of us will also then consume the same product we have a hand in producing.

Humans, robots and rules: what the Covid-19 pandemic tells us about decision-making and rules

27th March 2020 Mike Ryder Comment

As we all set ourselves up for weeks, or even months, of self-isolation, never has there been a better time to think about rules, and the reasons we do the things that we do.

While the UK government has imposed new rules, telling us that we need to stay at home, these rules are only ever an approximation of the ideal rule, which in this case, is the idea that everyone needs to stay at home. The issue here is that while universal isolation is all well and good in theory, we still need health workers and we still need to keep the electricity flowing and the water running.

Appearance on TRTWorld’s ‘ROBOTS: time to think about the laws?’

24th January 2020 Mike Ryder Comment

I was recently invited to take part in a roundtable discussion for TRTWorld’s Vision 2020 series. You can watch the show below.

It could be time to start thinking about a cybernetic Bill of Rights

11th December 2019 Mike Ryder Comment

Like it or loathe it, the robot revolution is now well underway and the futures described by writers such as Isaac Asimov, Frederik Pohl and Philip K. Dick are fast turning from science fiction into science fact. But should robots have rights? And will humanity ever reach a point where human and machine are treated the same?