Engineering Intelligent Systems

10People Systems: A New Way to Understand the World

10.1 Reviewing Types of Systems

In the Chapter 9, we have described how in the paradigm of systems thinking, there are three types of systems:

• Engineered Systems are those designed and built by people, including aircraft, vehicles, satellites, smartphones, computers, and factories.
• Human Activity Systems are those that contain both humans and engineered systems, but are motivated primarily by human action, including companies, governments, families, economies, and armies. These systems may incorporate technological systems, but the overall system operates based on human will and action.
• Biological or Natural Systems are those which are biological in nature, and are observed to operate in a systemic way to achieve apparent purposes. These include animals, human beings, trees, forests, schools of fish, ant colonies, and oceans.

Naturally, systems engineering is concerned primarily with engineered systems. As technology advances, systems engineers may also be concerned with how to build more intelligent capabilities into engineered systems, making them better performing, more capable and more autonomous. Systems thinking, is concerned with the broader field of human activity systems, and the many problems that occur when trying to optimize or change them. Many – perhaps all – problems in human society are systems problems, and can be analyzed using systems thinking.

This book describes how to make all kinds of systems more ...