Development of the information society

Introduction

People have strived to exchange news or information at all times, even in prehistoric times. Communication between people began with individual sounds, gestures, facial expressions, then through shouts people transmitted information over a distance. In Persia in the 6th century BC. slaves stood on high towers and with sonorous voices and shouts conveyed messages from one to another. In combat conditions, orders were transmitted along a chain consisting of soldiers, and were transmitted at a distance using conventional message signs. In Ancient China they used gongs, and the natives of Africa and America used wooden tom-tom drums, striking them faster, now slower, now with different strengths, combining sounds, it was possible to transmit news with sufficient speed and over considerable distances.

Sound signaling has been preserved for many centuries. Thanks to the “drum telegraph,” information about the advance of enemy troops spread over considerable distances and was ahead of official reports from couriers. Sound signaling also included horns, trumpets, bells, and after the invention of gunpowder, shots from rifles and cannons. The ringing of bells in Rus' announced a fire, celebrations and sadness.

As human society developed, sound signaling was gradually replaced by a more advanced one - light. Historically, the first means of light signaling were bonfires. Bonfires served as a signal to the ancient Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians and Russian Cossacks in the peasant war of 1670 - 1671. Fire alarms at night or smoke alarms during the day from damp grass or damp branches were widely used by Cossack guard posts on the southern borders of Russia. When the enemy appeared in the Zaporozhye Sich, they used a chain of fires built on elevated places, announcing the impending danger. The chronicle of light signaling would be incomplete without mentioning that the inhabitants of the archipelago, separated by the Strait of Magellan from the southern tip of the South American continent, also used watch fires, which gave rise to the English navigator James Cook to assign the name “Terra del Fuego” to the archipelago.

The language of fires and mirrors, although fast, was very poor. The fires carried little information; additional messengers were sent with the necessary detailed messages. The “torch telegraph” method, based on messages transmitted by torches in the spaces between the battlements of the walls, which corresponded to a certain letter of the code, also did not find application in practice.

French mechanic Claude Chappe invented the optical, or semaphore, telegraph. Information was transmitted by rotating a crossbar around its axis, attached to a metal pole on the roof of the tower. Self-taught Russian mechanic Ivan Kulibin invented a semaphore telegraph system, which he called a “long-distance machine,” with an original signal alphabet and syllabic code. Kulibin's invention was forgotten by the tsarist government and in Russia they used the invention of the French engineer Chappe.

The discovery of magnetic and electrical phenomena led to an increase in the technical prerequisites for creating devices for transmitting information over a distance. With the help of metal wires, a transmitter and a receiver, electrical communication could be carried out over a considerable distance. The rapid development of the electric telegraph required the design of electrical conductors. The Spanish doctor Salva invented the first cable in 1795, which was a bundle of twisted insulated wires.

The decisive word in the relay race of many years of searching for a high-speed means of communication was destined to be given to the remarkable Russian scientist P.L. Schilling. In 1828, a prototype of the future electromagnetic telegraph was tested. Schilling was the first to begin to practically solve the problem of creating cable products for underground installation, capable of transmitting electric current over a distance. Both Schilling and the Russian physicist and electrical engineer Jacobi came to the conclusion that underground cables were futile and that overhead conductive lines were advisable. In the history of electrical telegraphy, the most popular American was Samuel Morse. He invented the telegraph apparatus and the alphabet for it, which made it possible to transmit information over long distances by pressing a key. Due to the simplicity and compactness of the device, ease of manipulation during transmission and reception and, most importantly, speed, the Morse telegraph was the most common telegraph system used in many countries for half a century.

The transmission of still images over a distance was carried out in 1855 by the Italian physicist G. Caselli. The device he designed could transmit an image of text previously applied to the foil. With the discovery of electromagnetic waves by Maxwell and the experimental establishment of their existence by Hertz, the era of radio development began. The Russian scientist Popov managed to transmit a message by radio for the first time in 1895. In 1911, the Russian scientist Rosing made the world's first television broadcast. The essence of the experiment was that the image was converted into electrical signals, which were transferred over a distance using electromagnetic waves, and the received signals were converted back into the image. Regular television broadcasts began in the mid-thirties of our century.

Many years of persistent searches, discoveries and disappointments were spent on the creation and construction of cable networks. The speed of current propagation through the cable cores depends on the frequency of the current and on the electrical properties of the cable, i.e. on electrical resistance and capacitance. Truly the triumphant masterpiece of the last century was the transatlantic laying of a wire cable between Ireland and Newfoundland, carried out by five expeditions.

1. Development of the information society

Humanity is inevitably entering the information age. The weight of the information economy is constantly increasing, and its share, expressed in total working time, for economically developed countries today is already 40-60% and is expected to increase by another 10-15% by the end of the century.

One of the criteria for the transition of society to the post-industrial and further to the information stage of development can be the percentage of the population employed in the service sector:

if in a society more than 50% of the population is employed in the service sector, the post-industrial phase of its development has begun;

If in a society more than 50% of the population is employed in the field of information services, the society has become informational.

A number of publications note that the United States entered the post-industrial period of its development in 1956 (the state of California crossed this milestone back in 1910), and the United States became an information society in 1974.

Recognizing the undoubted achievements of the United States and other countries in the field of information, it is necessary to understand that a certain share of the “information capacity” of these countries was created through the transfer of a number of material, often environmentally harmful, industries to other countries of the world, through the so-called “ecological colonialism.”

The law of exponential growth of knowledge.

According to scientists, from the beginning of our era it took 1750 years for knowledge to double, the second doubling occurred in 1900, and the third by 1950, i.e. already in 50 years, with the volume of information growing 8-10 times over these half-century. Moreover, this trend is increasingly intensifying, since the volume of knowledge in the world will double by the end of the twentieth century, and the volume of information will increase more than 30 times. This phenomenon, called the “information explosion,” is listed among the symptoms that signal the beginning of the information age and include:

rapid reduction in the time it takes to double the volume of accumulated scientific knowledge;

material costs for storing, transmitting and processing information exceed similar costs for energy;

the opportunity for the first time to actually observe humanity from space (the levels of radio emission from the Sun and Earth in certain parts of the radio range have become closer)

The concept of post-industrial society as a general sociological theory of development was developed quite deeply by Western researchers: D. Bell, J. Galbraith, J. Martin, I. Masuda, F. Polak, O. Toffler, J. Fourastier and others. It was J. Fourastier who defined post-industrial society as a “civilization of services.”

Domestic science turned to this issue much later. This was due to ideology, in particular to the fact that in the terms “post-industrial”, “information” they saw an alternative to the formational terms - “socialist”, “communist” society. The concept of the information society cannot be considered alongside various types of formations; it is only the most optimal way to develop any of them.

Among the domestic scientists who have made a significant contribution to the development of this area, it is necessary to note V.M. Glushkov, N.N. Moiseev, A.I. Rakitov, A.V. Sokolov, A.D. Ursula, etc. Currently active Artamonov G.T., Colin K.K. are working in this direction. and etc.

How can the term “informatization” itself be defined? Approaches to analyzing the real state and prospects for the development of processes of informatization of society significantly depend on the answer to this question.

The most complete view seems to be on informatization as “a systemic and activity-based process of mastering information as a resource for management and development using computer science tools with the aim of creating an information society and, on this basis, further continuing the progress of civilization.”

mediatization - the process of improving the means of collecting, storing and distributing information;

computerization - the process of improving means of searching and processing information, as well as

intellectualization is the process of developing the ability to perceive and generate information, i.e. increasing the intellectual potential of society, including the use of artificial intelligence.

Experts note that, unfortunately, social informatization is often understood as the development of information and communication processes in society on the basis of the latest computer and telecommunications technology. Informatization of society, in principle, should be interpreted as development, qualitative improvement, radical strengthening of cognitive social structures and processes with the help of modern information technology tools. Informatization must be “merged” with the processes of social intellectualization, which significantly increases the creative potential of the individual and his information environment.

When discussed in the late 80s. In the concept of informatization of the country, scientists and specialists highlighted the main idea - it is not so much the concept of informatization, but the concept of the development of society, all its structures, that informatization is a companion to democratization and is impossible without it.

The ongoing process of formation and development of the information society throughout the world is objective in nature and cannot but affect our country “from the outside,” but the weak success of democratization of our society leads to the absence of a serious social order “from within” to improve the information environment.

What is the information society? What is his image?

For example, according to A.I. Rakitov society is considered information if:

any individual, group of persons, enterprise or organization anywhere in the country and at any time can receive, for an appropriate fee or free of charge, on the basis of automated access and communication systems, any information and knowledge necessary for their life and solving personal and socially significant problems;

modern information technology is produced, functions and is available to any individual, group or organization in society;

there are developed infrastructures that ensure the creation of national information resources in the volume necessary to support the constantly accelerating scientific, technological and socio-historical progress;

there is a process of accelerated automation and robotization of all spheres and branches of production and management;

There are radical changes in social structures, the consequence of which is the expansion of the scope of information activities and services.

Scientists distinguish two main theoretical and methodological approaches to the informatization of society:

technocratic, when information technologies are considered a means of increasing labor productivity and their use is limited mainly to the areas of production and management;

humanitarian, when information technology is considered as an important part of human life, important not only for production, but also for the social sphere.

The reasons for the significant spread of the technocratic approach and the identification of the concepts of “informatization” and “computerization” are both objective and subjective. Objectively, the development of new technology in general and, in particular, computer technology is proceeding rapidly and has an “aggressive” character. Subjectively, there is a very significant number of people, both unfamiliar with the problem and those for whom the introduction of such an identification into public opinion brings tangible financial and political dividends.

Informatization has a clear connection with environmentally friendly, sustainable development of society. The basis of the information economy is knowledge or an intellectual information resource. Knowledge has undeniable advantages over material resources - the foundation of previous stages of social development. Material resources strictly obey the laws of conservation. If you take something from nature, you aggravate environmental problems, but if you try to take something from a neighbor, conflicts and wars arise. The socio-economic structure of society, based on the information economy, by its very essence avoids most socio-economic and environmental problems and potentially assumes exponential development of society according to its main parameters (“knowledge generates knowledge”).

State policy in the field of informatization of Russia, which received a new impetus at the turn of 1993-1994, includes the following main directions:

creation and development of federal and regional information systems and networks, ensuring their compatibility and interaction in the unified information space of Russia;

formation and protection of state information resources as a national treasure;

ensuring national security interests in the field of informatization and a number of other areas.

The Concept for the Formation and Development of a Unified Information Space in Russia defines the priorities of users of state information resources in the following order: citizens, enterprises, government bodies.

The Concept of Information Security, which is an integral part of the Concept of National Security of the Russian Federation and represents an officially adopted system of views on the problem of information security, methods and means of protecting the vital interests of the individual, society and the state in the information sphere, is being actively developed.

2. Semantic foundations of information

2.1 Informology - general theory of information

Often the concept of “information” is used without thinking about the depth of its content, identifying the concepts of knowledge, data, information. It is obvious that the “everyday” use of the term “information” is completely inappropriate when it comes to the theory or theories of information. Often in these theoretical constructions the term “information” is filled with different meanings, and consequently, the theories themselves highlight only part of the facets of a certain system of knowledge, which can be called general information theory or “informology” - the science of the processes and tasks of transmission, distribution, processing and transformation of information.

The emergence of information science as a science can be dated back to the end of the 50s of our century, when the American engineer R. Hartley made an attempt to introduce a quantitative measure of information transmitted through communication channels.

Let's consider a simple game situation. Before receiving a message about the result of tossing a coin, a person is in a state of uncertainty regarding the outcome of the next toss. The partner's message provides information that removes this uncertainty. Note that the number of possible outcomes in the described situation is 2, they are equal (equally probable) and each time the transmitted information completely removed the uncertainty that arose. Hartley took the “amount of information” transmitted over a communication channel regarding two equal outcomes and removing uncertainty by indicating one of them, as a unit of information called a “bit”.

The creator of statistical information theory, K. Shannon, generalized the results of Hartley and his predecessors. His works were a response to the rapid development in the middle of the century of communications: radio, telephone, telegraph, television. Shannon's information theory made it possible to pose and solve problems about the optimal coding of transmitted signals in order to increase the capacity of communication channels, suggested ways to combat interference on lines, etc.

In the works of Hartley and Shannon, information appears to us only in its outer shell, which is represented by the relations of signals, signs, messages to each other - syntactic relations. The Hartley-Shannon quantitative measure does not pretend to assess the content (semantic) or value, useful (pragmatic) aspects of the transmitted message.

A new stage in the theoretical expansion of the concept of information is associated with cybernetics - the science of control and communication in living organisms, society and machines. Remaining in the positions of the Shannon approach, cybernetics formulates the principle of the unity of information and control, which is especially important for analyzing the essence of processes occurring in self-governing, self-organizing biological and social systems.

The concept developed in the works of N. Wiener assumes that the control process in the mentioned systems is a process of processing (transformation) by some central device of information received from sources of primary information (sensory receptors) and transmitting it to those parts of the system where it is perceived by its elements as an order to perform this or that action. After the action itself, the sensory receptors are ready to transmit information about the changed situation to perform a new control cycle. This is how a cyclic algorithm (sequence of actions) for managing and circulating information in the system is organized. It is important that the main role here is played by the content of information transmitted by receptors and the central device.

Information, according to Wiener, is “a designation of content received from the external world in the process of our adaptation to it and the adaptation of our feelings to it.”

Thus, the cybernetic concept leads to the need to evaluate information as some knowledge that has one value measure in relation to the outside world (semantic aspect) and another in relation to the recipient, his accumulated knowledge, cognitive goals and objectives (pragmatic aspect).

Attempts to build models of the concept of information, covering the semantic aspect of knowledge contained in a certain statement regarding the designated object, led to the creation of a number of so-called logical-semantic theories (R. Carnap, I. Bar-Hillel, J. G. Kemeny, E.K. Voishvillo and others). They view information as reducing or eliminating uncertainty. It is natural to assume that by means of any language, with the help of statements created in it, it is possible to describe a certain set of possible situations, states, and alternatives. The semantic information contained in any statement excludes some alternatives. The more alternatives a statement excludes, the more semantic information it carries. So, for example, one of the possible sets of situations can be described as follows: “all bodies expand when heated.” The statement “metals expand when heated” excludes all alternatives in which we can talk about non-metals. The semantic force of an utterance can be assessed by the relation all bodies (all metals). Even more informative is the statement “iron expands when heated,” since it excludes all alternatives except one.

With all the diversity of logical-semantic theories, they have common features; they indicate the way to solve three interconnected problems: determining the set of possible alternatives by means of the chosen language, quantitative assessment of alternatives, their relative comparison (weighing), introducing a measure of semantic information.

In the considered theoretical constructs - statistical and semantic information - we were talking about the potential opportunity to extract any information from the transmitted message. At the same time, in information exchange processes, situations very often arise in which the power or quality of information perceived by the receiver depends on how prepared it is for its perception.

The concept of a thesaurus is fundamental in the theoretical model of semantic information theory proposed by Yu.A. Schrader and explicitly taking into account the role of the receiver.

According to this model, a thesaurus is the receiver’s knowledge of information about the outside world, his ability to perceive certain messages.

Let’s imagine that before receiving the telegram “Meet flight SU172 tomorrow,” we already knew from yesterday’s long-distance telephone conversation about the upcoming arrival of our relative or friend, and having made inquiries, we also found out the number of the flight with which he could arrive in the city. Our thesaurus already contained the information contained in the telegram. Consequently, he did not change when he received it and the semantic value of this information turned out to be zero. It is obvious that such an assessment of the semantic content of information is mixed with a semantic aspect hidden in the initial “attitude” of the thesaurus to comprehend the received message.

In pragmatic concepts of information, this aspect is central, which leads to the need to take into account the value, usefulness, efficiency, economy of information, i.e. those of its qualities that decisively influence the behavior of self-organizing, self-governing, purposeful cybernetic systems (biological, social, human-machine).

One of the brightest representatives of pragmatic theories of information is the behavioral model of communication - the behaviorist Ackoff-Miles model. The starting point in this model is the target aspiration of the information recipient to solve a specific problem. A recipient is in a “goal-oriented state” if he is striving for something and has alternative paths of unequal effectiveness to achieve the goal. A message conveyed to the recipient is informative if it changes his “goal-oriented state.”

Since the “goal-oriented state” is characterized by the sequence of possible actions (alternatives), the effectiveness of the action and the significance of the result, the message transmitted to the recipient can affect all three components to varying degrees. In accordance with this, the information transmitted differs by type into “informing”, “instructing” and “motivating”. Thus, for the recipient, the pragmatic value of the message lies in the fact that it allows him to outline a strategy of behavior in achieving the goal by constructing answers to the questions: what, how and why to do at each next step? For each type of information, the behaviorist model offers its own measure, and the overall pragmatic value of information is determined as a function of the difference between these quantities in the “goal-oriented state” before and after its change to a new “goal-oriented state.”

The next stage in the development of pragmatic theories of information was the work of the American logician D. Harrah, who built a logical-pragmatic model of communication. One of the weaknesses of the behaviorist model is its inability to evaluate false reports. Harrach's model involves taking into account the social nature of human communication. In accordance with it, received messages must first be subjected to processing, after which messages “usable” are selected. It is from the totality of usable messages that the criteria of pragmatic value must be applied.

Information theory “in the sense of Shannon” arose as a means of solving specific applied problems in the field of signal transmission over communication channels. Therefore, in essence, it was and is an applied information science. The family of such sciences, which specifically study information processes in one or another specific content and form, is growing quite rapidly in the second half of our century. These are cybernetics, systems theory, documentary studies, linguistics, symbolic logic, etc. The core uniting all these studies is the general theory of information - “informology”, which is based on syntactic, semantic and pragmatic concepts of information.

2.2 Formalization of knowledge: methods and techniques. Their effectiveness, comparative analysis

When searching for the most convenient, rational means and forms of information exchange, a person most often faces the problem of a compact and unambiguous representation of knowledge.

Knowledge representation is a process whose ultimate goal is to place a certain amount of knowledge in a kind of “packaging” in which it can begin to move through information exchange channels, reach the recipient, or linger at knowledge storage points. Such packaging can be a phrase of oral speech, a letter, a book, a reference book, a geographical map, a crossword puzzle, a painting, etc.

Each type of packaging has its own characteristics, but they all share one quality, although not to the same extent: packaging is designed to ensure the safety of the invested knowledge. And not only and not so much physical, but semantic (semantic). To do this, it is necessary that the sender and recipient of information of packaged knowledge use some common system of rules for their presentation and perception. Let us call such a system of rules a knowledge representation formalism. The most natural formalism suitable for humans is language (oral speech and writing).

Without knowledge, without constant work on packaging it into language structures, the language is dead. It lives and develops thanks to the creative energy of man, thanks to the fact that human thought constantly and persistently seeks a way out into a form expressed in language.

Can every thought or knowledge be expressed in language? Apparently not. For example, there are dozens of different definitions of the concepts of health, intelligence, thinking, information, etc. Noting this limitation of the expressive means of language, F. Engels wrote: “Definitions have no meaning for science, because they always turn out to be insufficient.”

A thought that cannot be expressed in a linguistic structure cannot be included in information exchange. Communication between people is thus carried out using language as a form of knowledge representation. The same content knowledge can be given different verbal or text forms. This is very strongly manifested, for example, in fiction, poetry, etc. The richness of a language is also the richness of the culture of a particular people.

At the same time, in some areas of human activity, this wealth and variety of expressive means of natural language becomes more of a disadvantage than an advantage. For example, the words of a command must be short, sharp, and have an unambiguous meaning, otherwise coordinated and clear joint actions of subordinates will not work. In special branches of science, specific language systems are formed, which are, as it were, a “narrowing” of natural language. The language of mathematics is especially highlighted as a certain basis for presenting a system of knowledge in the exact, natural sciences. Chemistry, physics, philosophy, etc. have their own language.

The feasibility of using such narrowed language systems (dialects) makes it possible to increase the reliability of information exchange processes, because the possibility of misinterpretation of transmitted information is reduced. At the same time, of course, the circle of recipients is narrowed, since in order to perceive information it is necessary to speak the appropriate dialect. The main advantages of a narrowed language are the ability to create and use typical, “standard” knowledge packages, as well as to significantly remove polysemy (semantic polysemy) present in natural language.

Polysemy is the enemy of information exchange, a factor in introducing distortion and errors (semantic noise) in the path of information transmission. Therefore, eliminating ambiguity is one of the most important areas in the development of formal techniques for representing knowledge. The creation of a language of science or a language of business prose, often called “concealarite,” is a natural step on this path, a huge work of society over a number of centuries. A comparison of this subsystem of natural language with literary language shows how different they are in the characteristics that determine their expressive ability.

Thus, “officework” is intended to objectify the presentation of information, uses, as a rule, translatable categories and language forms, is devoid of synonymy, operates with specific facts and concepts, is informative (as opposed to information redundancy), it is inherently logical, it is algebraic in nature (thought, information , knowledge is developed into a sequence of words and sentences, gradually forming in a complete, complete form towards the end of the text). All these properties are not mandatory for the language of literature, which is characterized by subjectivity of forms, the possibility of using untranslatable constructions, infinitely rich synonymy, figurativeness (geometricity) of statements, etc.

Further progress towards the formalization of knowledge leads to the concepts of class and classification.

Classification - distribution of objects, objects and concepts into groups (classes) according to detected properties.

In any emerging science, one of the first principles was the principle of systematization of knowledge. Therefore, classification as a method of scientific systematics immediately began to play an important role in the formation of the core of knowledge of a particular scientific direction. Suffice it to recall the classification system of C. Linnaeus in botany, the taxonomy of living organisms, etc. Classification systems of this type have a pronounced hierarchical structure, due to which all objects (concepts, facts) are divided into levels interconnected by the “senior-junior” relationship: type, class, order, family, genus, species.

An example of a classification of this type, where genus-specific relations permeate the entire structure of relevant knowledge, is the well-known “table of ranks” introduced by Peter 1 in 1722. The table of ranks divided ranks into 14 ranks. Each rank corresponded to a specific position. The first 6 ranks of civil and court services and the first chief officer rank in the army gave the right to receive hereditary nobility, which contributed to the formation of a noble bureaucracy.

We see in this example that classification can manifest itself not only as a tool for organizing scientific knowledge, but also as a factor of social order. Therefore, the existing systems of tariffs and rates, academic degrees and titles, the structure of positions and official positions in the civil service and army play not only an organizing, but also a stimulating role. Such a model of knowledge is called “hierarchical” in science and practice. Its advantages are that it is easy to learn, easy to maintain (easily replenished and “cleaned”), and effectively solves the problem of classifying new concepts across hierarchical levels.

Disadvantages of the hierarchical knowledge model:

Direct connections between the concepts of neighboring levels are weakly indicated or completely absent;

Hierarchical classification is most effective in cases where, when moving from level to level, the same type of relationship works, for example, genus-species.

The taxonomy underlying the classification can be used as a powerful means of directed research search. Thus, sometimes it turns out to be useful, when considering a group of objects, to single out several of their characteristic features as defining ones and introduce a certain measure of the degree of manifestation of these features. This approach is called morphological, as it uses the idea of ​​​​decomposing an object into its parts (features). Often such a grouping leads to the identification of patterns connecting objects of each group that were previously unknown.

Thanks to this approach, D.I. Mendeleev discovered the famous periodic law. Emphasizing the dominant role of the feature he identified, he wrote: “... within the meaning of all accurate information about natural phenomena, the mass of a substance is precisely such a property of it, on which all other properties should depend... Therefore, it is closest or most natural to look for dependencies between properties and the similarities of the elements, on the one hand, and their atomic weights, on the other."

The morphological method carries out, as it were, an anatomical study of objects, concepts, meanings by dividing the whole into characteristic, essential parts. Its goal is to clarify the role of the particular in the whole picture, systematize knowledge about a given reality, and draw up hypotheses about possible options for new (not yet given) knowledge.

The above-mentioned disadvantages of the hierarchical data model are also characteristic of morphological models. They can be eliminated using the so-called branching (tree) structures (models) of knowledge representation. Individual concepts, facts, knowledge are interconnected by relationships that express the essence of the connections between them. As in the hierarchical model, these can be genus-species relations, but also other types of relations: “to be a representative”, “to have”, “to inherit”, etc. The unambiguity of connections in the tree structure and the diversity of the relationships it covers makes it possible to increase the “dynamism” of the knowledge system. Indeed, the system of knowledge represented by hierarchical or morphological models is static, or, as they say, declarative.

In the tree structure, you can trace the ascending and descending branches of connections, obtaining formulas for deductive (from particular to general), inductive (from general to particular) and inductive-deductive conclusions. For example: “the plant may be a flower called rose”; "rose - flower, part of a plant"; "a rose is a flower with petals."

Thanks to this organization, the presented knowledge receives procedurality as an addition to declarativeness, i.e. the ability to derive general knowledge from the structure of relationships and concepts. The tree-like structure of knowledge, despite the simplicity and prevalence of information exchange in everyday life, is still quite specific. It, like the previous knowledge model, contains a hierarchy paradigm. At the same time, the internal “world order” of a certain knowledge system may not correspond to this paradigm.

Let us consider as an example the concept of “work collective”. The body of knowledge that describes a specific work team is extremely diverse, or, as they say, multidimensional. It is often not possible to establish hierarchical relationships (genus-species) between aspects, although there is a connection between them. Here is one of the possible aspects: all representatives of the work collective can be included alphabetically in a list indicating against the last name and first name of each employee the personnel number, year of birth, education, specialty, rank, length of service, etc. Let's call this list "List 1".

Another aspect: all members of the team work on a piecework basis and the amount of their earnings is determined on the basis of the so-called. tariff schedule. Therefore, by compiling a list of specialties and categories indicating the cost of one hour of working time, we form some idea of ​​knowledge about the remuneration system for members of a given team. Let's call this list "List 2".

The third aspect: when calculating the salary of each employee, we must take into account his actual output over a certain period of work (for example, a month). This means that the third list, compiled by, say, a site foreman, is a list consisting of personnel numbers and the time actually worked by the employee. This is “List 3”.

It is clear that all three lists contain the necessary amount of knowledge about the workforce when it comes to payroll. Such models of knowledge representation, consisting of list structures linked to each other, are called relational.

Relational models can represent more complex areas of knowledge. In them, each aspect can be considered as some autonomous block within which changes can be made without affecting other areas and without introducing contradictions into the overall picture of knowledge. A convenient means is a combination of stable and changeable knowledge. Thus, the knowledge expressed by List 2 is stable for a long time. List 1 presents knowledge that may change over time - staff turnover, changes in qualifications, etc. List 3 is updated every time the next calculation becomes necessary. The task of replenishing the relational model with new knowledge by expanding existing lists and adding new list structures does not pose any fundamental difficulties.

In the above example, we considered only the problem of determining the amount of earnings. But, apparently, it is clear that relational models that include a sufficient number of list structures in terms of content and quantity create the opportunity to solve a large number of different tasks, each of which is essentially the task of extracting from the total amount of knowledge invested in the model the necessary specific knowledge on the issue of interest to the recipient.

There are other formalisms for representing knowledge, in addition to the hierarchical, morphological, tree and relational models listed above. For example, intermediate between the tree and relational models are the so-called semantic networks. With their help, connections are established between concepts, facts, and knowledge - relationships. They seem to be a generalization of tree models because differ from the latter by removing the requirements of hierarchy. At the same time, semantic networks can be considered a special case of relational models, because It is from them that related list structures can be built, when a concept that is a node of a semantic network is expanded into a list, and the corresponding relationship with another list from a single one becomes a group one.

All the described methods of knowledge formalization are aimed at creating some stable “supporting structure” on which the shell of a specific knowledge system can be placed. If an understanding and mutual agreement is reached between the sender and the recipient of knowledge regarding this supporting structure, then the information exchange acquires the necessary regulatory basis, which decisively increases its effectiveness.

Information technology.

Traditional information technology, as a rule, refers to information technology based on “hard algorithms”.

New information technology, as a rule, is understood as information technology based on “soft algorithms”, using the achievements of artificial intelligence.

Matter, energy, information, knowledge - connection of concepts (2).

The starting premise is the statement that information is the semantic essence of matter. The concept of “matter” is identified with the concept of “system”, which includes its constituent elements - matter, energy, knowledge and information. These elements, in accordance with the law of conservation of matter, maintain the system in an equilibrium state through mutual transitions from one substance to another in the system (Fig. below). When these elements of the system interact, matter acts as a carrier of knowledge, and energy acts as a carrier of information.

Information, data, knowledge - the relationship of concepts.

Information is a universal property of matter, manifested in cybernetic communication processes.

Data is information that serves for any conclusion and possible decision. They can be stored and transmitted, but do not act as information.

Knowledge is the result of cognitive activity, a system of concepts about reality acquired with its help.

Correlation of the concepts information, data, knowledge.

The following figurative chain corresponding to the logical connection of these concepts can be proposed - grain, flour, bread.

Information always has a “transport” connotation of transferring knowledge over communication networks, and knowledge is always associated with the personality of its creator.

2.3. Problems of artificial intelligence.

Mass informatization of society is impossible without a computer with an intelligent (friendly) interface based on the achievements of artificial intelligence (AI).

The direction of knowledge engineering has separated from research in the field of AI - identifying, structuring, formalizing knowledge for the development of intelligent systems, knowledge-based systems, or expert systems (ES).

ES are computer systems that accumulate expert knowledge and fundamental knowledge in a particular subject area, have the ability to make logical conclusions and act as electronic consultants for decision makers.

Systems based on knowledge of various subject areas (knowledge bases) are in great demand in the world today. Thus, their sales volume in 1990 amounted to $30-40 million, and in 1993 - $207 million and continues to grow rapidly.

What remains in the field of AI research, so to speak, in the narrow sense of the word?

1. “Soft” computing. “Hard” calculations are work based on algorithms, while “soft” calculations are calculations in which there may be new tasks and a random finding of what is needed. Thus, we are talking about evolutionary algorithms, modeling evolutionary processes.

2. Cognitive graphics (pyfogram). This is not illustrative graphics, but graphics that generate new solutions (cognitive graphics). The operator's eye records a certain pattern of the light spot - this is then removed from the computer as a template for a future solution, i.e. Cognitive graphics are visual representations of mathematics.

3. Virtual reality. Information technology tools and, in particular, human-machine interface, make it possible to create a “virtual world” - an artificial three-dimensional space.

The first virtual reality company was VPL Research (USA), founded in 1984 by Jeron Lenier, the author of the term “virtual reality.”

4. Modeling human reasoning (applied semiotic systems). The main problem is that human reasoning is not a system.

This chapter examined the categories without which the analysis of information processes in society is impossible.

3. Social communications: history, modernity, prospects

3.1. Resource and sociocultural concepts of the information environment as a space of social communications

When the information environment is considered from the point of view of the information stored and circulating in it, it, as a rule, acts as an object of technology that serves certain human purposes, which act as external operating conditions in relation to this technology. This is a resource or technical approach to the information environment.

As soon as the information environment begins to be considered as a means of communication, not limited to the transmission of factual information, but associated with the transmission of opinions, orders, promises, hypotheses, questions, rumors, etc., it acts as an integral fragment of culture and should be studied as such.

The absolutization of the first approach presupposes the belief that technical capabilities predetermine the goals of social development (technical utopias arise).

Absolutization of the second approach can lead to forgetting the technical capabilities of informatization and underestimating technical innovations.

3.2. Information exchange in society and its evolution

Types of exchanges in society:

material;

energy;

informational (relevant since the mid-twentieth century).

A holistic system is characterized by exchange between elements (V.G. Afanasyev).

The subject of our consideration is information exchange. The history of improving information exchange coincides with the history of the creation and improvement of sign systems and the technology of creating signs.

The main phases of information exchange are:

oral phase;

writing phase;

book phase;

computer phase.

D.S. Robertson (USA), based on the interdependence of civilizational and information processes, put forward the formula “civilization is information.” Based on the quantitative measures of mathematical information theory, Robertson ranks civilizations by the amount of information they produce as follows:

Level 0 - information capacity of an individual’s brain - 107 bits;

Level 1 - oral communication within a community, village or tribe - amount of circulating information » 109 bits;

Level 2 - written culture; a measure of public awareness is the Library of Alexandria, which has 532,800 scrolls containing 1011 bits of information;

Level 3 - book culture: there are hundreds of libraries, tens of thousands of books, newspapers, and magazines are published, the total capacity of which is estimated at 1017 bits;

Level 4 - information society with electronic information processing of 1025 bits.

Let us consider the contribution of each historical phase to improving the efficiency of information exchange.

1) Oral phase

The development of speech and language is an objective process in the development of society. As F. Engels noted, “developing people developed to the point that they needed to say something to each other.”

Labor played a role in human development. Speech influenced his development to no less extent.

Speech is a reflection of thought processes (the tip of the iceberg). Speech culture reflects human development.

As mathematical analysis has shown, language has an average of 20% redundancy. This means that any message can be shortened by 1/5 without loss of information, but this sharply reduces the noise immunity of the information.

Yu.V. Rozhdestvensky identified 10 preliterate sign systems:

signs, including symptoms of traditional medicine;

omens (signs);

visual group: music; graphic and pictorial representation, including ornament; plastic arts, dance, pantomime;

applied arts: architecture, costume, folk crafts;

measurement group: measures;

spatial references;

signals in the control loop;

2) Written phase

Helped solve the problem of storing information; it became possible to ensure a connection between the past and the future (maintaining continuity in development).

Writing, as the first form of modeling the natural and social world spatially separated from the subject, opens up society, in the strict, scientific sense of the word, as a civilization, that is, it makes it possible to operate with social semantic information without direct contact. Writing was a semiotic revolution in the iconic ways of organizing society.

Writing serves as one of the most important means of preserving language alive.

The problem of “left-handers”, its social significance.

The “breaking” of “left-handers” into “right-handers” in childhood reduces the possibilities of personal realization of the former, their possible contribution to the intelligence of the nation.

Road signs - idiographic writing.

3) Book phase

Gutenberg's press (1440 - 1450) - the beginning of the era of printing.

The first Russian dated printed book is “Apostle” - Ivan Fedorov, Pyotr Mstislavets - 1563-1564.

The emergence of the opportunity to ensure the preservation of authorship, intellectual property (book imprint), and a significantly more massive and rapid exchange of information.

“Printing was a powerful tool that preserved the thought of an individual and increased its power hundreds of times” V.I. Vernadsky.

Communication processes as a whole determine the social nature of man.

Redundancy of text (prose, poetry).

The informational capacity of poetry is 1.5 times greater than that of prose, i.e. a message of 150 lines can be conveyed in one hundred lines of poetry. This fact is explained by the fact that verse allows for greater freedom of expression and greater imagery than prose. These qualities of the verse provide it with greater expressiveness, allowing it to convey more information with the same number of characters. Academician A.N. Kolmogorov established that the information content of Pushkin’s poems is very close to the limit - the information capacity of the Russian language in general, while modern poets are significantly lower.

The industrial communication system is the highest point in the development of book culture, but already in its heyday, signs of its erosion are noticeable, for example, impersonal mass communication, oppositional information and documentary activity, as well as the spread of the myth of the information crisis.

Book information science has begun to reduce its effectiveness, a contradiction is emerging between the flow of current literature and individual reading capabilities, and a situation is emerging where it is easier to discover a new fact or create a new theory than to make sure that they have not yet been discovered or derived (hence the unjustified duplication of scientific and design work, slowing down the pace of scientific and technological progress).

Thus, there is a need for more advanced technical means to alleviate the information crisis.

The book is currently in electronic form.

The book's disappearance is not predicted. It is necessary to preserve the book as an attribute of culture (formation of imaginative, abstract thinking).

The largest library in the world, the Library of Congress, stores more than 50 million books, including the Gutenberg Bible.

The world's richest collection of Russian books is located in the Russian National Library (formerly the State Public Library named after M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, St. Petersburg).

4) Computer phase

A new paperless stage in the development of social communications. Paper is needed only for the reproduction of visual documents. The role of systematization, storage, processing of information, as well as its transmission over long distances, has been taken over by technology.

The main difference between electronic dialogue and interpersonal oral communication, according to Professor A.V. Sokolov, is not so much the mediation by the screen, which exists in the case of a video telephone or industrial television, not to mention cinema, but rather the fact of communication not with a person, but with electronic memory. The dialogue “person - computer” is the main difference between electronic communication and oral or documentary communication, where a direct or document-mediated dialogue “person - person” takes place.

What are the qualitatively new possibilities of a computer page from a computer book?

Firstly, in the conditions of informatization and the presence of global information networks, a computer book becomes an integral part of the global polylogue and intertext.

Secondly, the unprecedented mobility and variability of the content and design of a computer page literally pushes the reader-viewer into a dialogue with it.

Thirdly, its potential supercapacity, provided by a global network of databases, knowledge bases and expert systems, to which each individual screen book can be connected, making it a book of “a thousand and one authors,” begins to operate in a fundamentally different way.

The computer page expands the sociocultural range in an unpredictable way. We are talking about unpredictability in the sense of the transition from a rigidly fixed text, characteristic of classical written culture, to “soft” text on a computer screen with its instant readiness for transformation.

Hypertext as a new technology for working with texts in the computer phase of information exchange.

The use of hypertext technologies in the social sphere, which is described by many parameters that are difficult to formalize, is especially important.

Another reason for the popularity of these technologies is the opportunity they provide to fulfill purely individual information needs.

The communication process includes the following main components: selection of known signs from the list of the sender and their transmission through the so-called communication channel and recognition of the perceived signs by the recipient using the set available to him. The transfer of ideas is possible only on the condition that the two named sets have a common part, which is conveyed in the diagram by the corresponding area of ​​intersecting circles. As this process is repeated in systems with memory and “statistical” perception, and in particular in the human brain, the perception of the same signs gradually provides an increasing area of ​​intersection between the list of the recipient and the list of the sender. This recipient learning process is shown in the diagram with the dotted arrow on the right. Many individual acts of communication, due to their progressive influence on the composition of the set, acquire a cumulative character. This, in particular, is the process of mastering culture, especially the mosaic culture of our time. Semantemes that are most often found in messages gradually penetrate the recipient’s list and change its composition; This is the key to the cyclical development of social culture.

4. Information resources of society

4.1. Information crisis of the early 70s of the twentieth century: prerequisites, content, symptoms in social practice, consequences

The information crisis of the early 70s of the twentieth century manifested itself in a decrease in the efficiency of information exchange:

the volume of published data has increased sharply;

it has become difficult to communicate between groups of different specialists;

The problem of interlingual exchange in the world has grown.

The paradox of social communication in conditions of an information crisis is the phenomenon of information “thrombosis,” i.e. information “explosion” (avalanche-like growth in the volume of social information), accompanied by information “hunger” (physiological limitations of a person in the perception and processing of information and difficulties in isolating the necessary information from the general flow).

A significant step towards resolving the information crisis was the creation of the microprocessor in 1971.

Thus, the most pressing and pressing problem in the world is the creation, preservation and effective use of information resources (IR). Another independent type of public resource has been formed - information, which allows saving most of the other resources of society. The further progress of society today is largely associated with the improvement of information infrastructure, the efficiency of the formation, placement and use of information resources and products.

4.2. Information resource of society - definition of the concept

The concept of “society information resource” (ISR) is one of the key concepts of social informatics. The widespread use of this concept began after the publication of Gromov’s book by G.R. in 1984. “National information resources: problems of industrial exploitation.” The creation at the turn of the 80s of a fundamentally new concept - national information resources - was due to the growing dependence of industrialized countries on sources of information (technical, economic, political, military), as well as on the level of development and efficiency of the use of means of transmitting and processing information.

The concept of IR is at the stage of formation; the difficulty of its unambiguous definition is associated with the ambiguity and complexity of such concepts as “knowledge”, “information”, “data”, etc.

IRO can be defined as knowledge accumulated in society, prepared for appropriate social use.

4.3. Knowledge as national wealth. The problem of “brain drain” from Russia

It is important to note that living knowledge, being a national wealth, is not included in the concept of IR; we are talking here about knowledge alienated from its bearers. The level of “living knowledge” in each country is determined by historical heritage, level of education, professional qualifications, etc.

Living knowledge as a national wealth is associated with the notorious problem of “brain drain” from Russia. According to the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, 4,576 workers emigrated in 1992, and 5,876 workers in science and education emigrated in 1993. The most suitable age group is 31-45 years old. According to forecasts by the Council of Europe Commission on Education, Russia's losses from this process could reach $50-60 billion per year. There is reason to believe that the current scale of intellectual emigration is only the tip of the iceberg in comparison with what awaits us. As sociological surveys show, more than 80% of domestic scientists would like to go abroad and will leave as soon as the right opportunity presents itself. A significant part of Russia’s scientific youth already practically lives abroad, formally listed as employees of Russian research institutes. The “internal” brain drain is even more profound: now for every emigrating scientist there are 9 colleagues leaving science for success in business or politics.

4.4. The main problems of research in the field of IR society are:

the problem of revealing the essence of IR as a form of knowledge representation, defining and studying the patterns of formation, transformation and dissemination of various types of IR in society.

Apparently, such scientific disciplines will be needed as “informology” - a body of knowledge about the properties and patterns of the formation of IR and “informdynamics” - the science of the laws of transformation of some forms of IR into others and about the processes of their dissemination in society;

the problem of developing a methodology for quantitative and qualitative assessment of the IR available in society, as well as forecasting society’s needs for these resources;

the problem of creating methods for studying the structure and topology of the distribution of various types of IR in the regions of Russia, as well as on a global scale. The scientific discipline designed to solve this problem can be called “informationography.”

Free access to national information resources is the most important condition for observing the constitutional right of citizens to information, the right “to freely seek, receive, transmit, produce and distribute information in any legal way” (Article 29, paragraph 4 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation). In solving the problems of providing access to automated information resources (AIR), the most important role belongs to the “geographical” location of databases (DBs), their topological characteristics.

Of the 3,229 databases covered, almost 65% are located in Moscow. There are large territories that are practically not covered by information technology. Consideration of the databases according to their purpose showed that only in Moscow are located 74% of the databases of scientific and technical information, 84% of reference, financial and accounting and statistical information, 87% of management information, 92.6% of commercial information.

Thus, the concentration of general purpose databases in the capital limits access to national IR. These difficulties can be compensated by the variety of products and services created on its basis and, above all, by the use of telecommunication networks that can provide remote access to “everyone,” but in practice they are available only to users with high payment abilities.

National IR is a new economic category. The correct formulation of the question of the quantitative assessment of these resources and their relationship with other economic categories still awaits large-scale organizational measures for their development and will require long-term efforts of specialists and scientists from various fields of knowledge.

In the future, all information resources will be socialized. Information belongs to everyone - this principle has already been legitimized by UNESCO. However, by giving “their” information (knowledge) to society, everyone should receive compensation for the work spent on obtaining it. The lack of development of mechanisms for implementing intellectual property rights significantly hampers the development of national information resources.

The problem of depersonalization, the impersonality of knowledge placed in a computer information fund, also requires a solution. Society needs to learn to manage both the trend of devaluing creative work to create knowledge, lowering the social status of the creator, the creator of knowledge, and the trend of increasing the status of the knowledge user, revaluing to some extent his more routine and more accessible work. Such leveling can reduce the creative potential of society, which will have very negative consequences for its development.

4.5. Forms of materialization of information resources of society

Alienated knowledge, prepared for social use, is materialized in documents on various media, including electronic ones, in works of art, etc.

Qualitatively new consumer properties of electronic publications are provided, for example, by multimedia technology, and a reduction in the price of these products is achieved by distributing them on optical compact discs (CD-ROM). If in 1993 one CD-ROM was released in Russia, then in 1994 - already 25, and in 1995 - more than 100 information products, including databases, on CD-ROM.

4.6. The problem of “electronization” of Russian information funds

Of particular importance for Russia is the problem of electronicization of national libraries and various databases, the solution of which will be a significant contribution to the activation of the country's information resources. Back in 1994, the Committee under the President of the Russian Federation on Informatization Policy prepared a national report “Automated Information Resources of Russia. Status and development trends.”

4.7. Automated information resources of Russia

The largest IR in Russia is concentrated in VINITI: the volume of the machine retrofund of abstract information is 16 million documents.

In the total volume of information technology in Russia, the largest part is scientific and technical information, but as market relations develop, databases of commercial, business, and legal information are increasingly being generated and distributed.

According to the Ministry of Science of the Russian Federation, the annual increase in information arrays is 11-12%, only 3-4% is realized. The reason is the lack of a well-organized information market.

It is important for information consumers to have a reference and navigation service in the world of information goods and services. This problem is being solved by the Scientific and Technical Center “Informregister”, creating an electronic catalog of domestic databases and data banks, which currently contains more than 10 thousand information about databases and their owners.

In Russia there are up to 30 thousand databases containing hundreds of gigabytes of information. However, there are only about 3 thousand databases available to a wide range of users.

The quality of databases, in particular the reliability of the information they contain, is largely determined by the efficiency of their updating. However, 15% of databases are updated annually, approximately 11% - quarterly, 13% - monthly, about 7% - daily. It is possible to recoup the created databases only with repeated replication and multi-dimensional use, since the cost of creating and maintaining, for example, a documentary database per document is in the range of $40-200.

The leader in the preparation of databases available on the world market is the USA (more than 5 thousand databases per year). Countries that prepare more than 100 databases per year include Russia, Great Britain (641), Canada (480), Australia (182), France (288), Germany (342), Japan (153). Databases available on the global market are presented in 29 languages.

As of 1995, there are 1,131 databases operating on-line in the world, of which 99% of the databases belong to the United States and only 32 databases (0.03%) belong to third world countries, which clearly indicates the monopolization of science.

Databases are classified by structure, purpose and access method.

According to the structure of the database, they are divided into:

documentary (bibliographic, abstract);

factual;

numeric;

full-text and hypertext;

lexicographic.

Based on the purpose of the information contained, databases are divided into:

DB of business information (social, commercial and other information, cadastres, registers);

Database of information for specialists (economic, law enforcement, etc. information);

Mass media database.

Based on the access method, databases are divided into:

Databases hosted on hosts (accessible via networks);

Databases replicated in communicative formats;

DBs replicated with software (including CD-ROM);

local databases.

Let us dwell in more detail on the concept of “factographic social data bases”.

Social data includes data about the population and social environment.

Information about the population includes demographic, passport, personnel, social, medical and any other personal data about individuals, as well as summary data about the population of the state as a whole and its individual territories and about certain population groups: pensioners, tenants, school-age children, women and etc.

The difficulties of creating a population database in Russia are associated with the lack of the required number of supercomputers, communication networks, as well as with clearly insufficient funding for this area.

Information about the social environment includes data on vacancies, urban planning, urban passenger transport, urban management, laws, violations of public order, etc.

Scientists and specialists raise the question of the need for a deeper study of the concept of “social environment”, the development of a system of indicators for its description and the creation of appropriate electronic databases. For example, the proposed concept of “regional spatial-subject environment” implements the socio-spatial (territorial) aspect of people’s life. For example, the following standard should become generally known and constantly monitored over time: every adult must travel 8,000 km per year for social and cultural purposes. (city dweller) or 6000 km. (villager). Today, a city dweller travels an average of 3,700 km. per year, and the villager only 2100 km.

It is obvious that scientific study and factual content at the modern level of such an important concept as “social time” is necessary.

The electronicization of factual databases of social data in general is only in its initial stages in Russia.

Only the presence of the entire range of computers from personal to super, with resources corresponding to their class, the presence of developed means of communication, as well as modern software (both resident and distributed) will provide a practical opportunity for the collective use of information resources within the country and active exchange with foreign bases and data banks.

Solving a complex of social and technical problems of activating Russia’s information resources, in other words, increasing its information potential, will make it possible to create the information environment of society necessary for the progressive development.

5. Informatization of society: social conditions, prerequisites and consequences

Social prerequisites for informatization are what must be present in society for the successful deployment of informatization processes to begin. Social conditions of informatization are the real environment in which the process of informatization occurs. The social consequences of informatization are real and predictable changes in society that occur under the influence of informatization.

It should be noted that the concept of “social” is interpreted in the broad and narrow sense of the word:

“social” in the broad sense of the word is identical to the concept of “public”. Consideration in this sense of the conditions and prerequisites of informatization is an analysis of the real and necessary state of all spheres of society from the point of view of their readiness to accept and develop informatization;

“social” in the narrow sense of the word. This approach examines the informational features of the existence of various social groups, their level of readiness for the informatization process, and also studies the social structure in its relationship with the informatization process.

5.1. Technical aspect of social conditions and prerequisites for informatization

The development of science and technology is the impetus and means of implementing informatization processes. Now in Russia the process of informatization is entering the 3rd phase of development. 1st phase - the beginning of the 70s - the emergence of computing tools that allow automated processing of symbolic information (“Minsk-32”, hereinafter referred to as ES-computer). At this stage, automated control systems for air and railway transport, energy systems, and the defense complex were created. 2nd phase - 1983, when a national program was developed for the development of computer technology and automated control systems until the year 2000 (a response to the “challenge” of Japan, which announced the creation of fifth-generation machines). In 1989, the informatization program was updated until 2005 due to the need to reflect the means of personal computer science in it. 1993 - the beginning of stage 3. The need to create a concept for informatization of the Russian Federation after the collapse of the USSR. The technical basis of informatization has weakened significantly due to the current ownership of a number of defense enterprises producing computer equipment in Ukraine and other CIS countries.

Considering the technical aspect of the conditions of informatization in Russia, we note that the country has accumulated quite a powerful potential, which, with reasonable conversion, allows us to solve the technical aspect of the problem of informatization. As encouraging trends, we can note: the improvement in the quality of the so-called “red” and “yellow” computer assemblies, the fact that in 1993 already every third personal computer sold in Russia was assembled on its territory, as well as the beginning of work on small-scale production of super -Computer “Elbrus”.

A developed communication network (CN), represented by data processing nodes and communication lines, is being created and dynamically increasing its capabilities in society. Based on the state of the CS, one can assess at what stage of informatization (initial, middle, final) a particular society is located. The stage begins when there is a set of prerequisites, the consideration of which makes it possible to reveal the multifaceted nature of the problem of informatization. A.P. Ershov proposed the following metric:

The early phase of informatization of society begins when the current computer system reaches the total computing power of about 10 op/sec/person. (deployment of a sufficiently reliable long-distance telephone network);

The final phase of informatization of society corresponds to the achievement of the mentioned CS computing power of 10 million op/sec/person. (reliable and prompt information contact between members of society on the principle of “everyone with everyone”).

The average rate of increase in computing power of computer systems under the conditions of “normal” development of the informatization process is 10 times per decade. The entire stage of informatization of society as a whole takes about 7 decades.

The approximate required stock of technical equipment to ensure the operation of the CS nodes of a “full informatization” society with a population of about 100 million people is as follows:

Telephone sets - 200 million units.

Personal computers - 100 million units.

Mini-computers - 400 thousand units.

Medium computers - 40 thousand units.

Super-computer - 400 units.

Comparative data early 90s:

In Russia, a telephone network has been deployed for 30 million devices, i.e. An essential technical prerequisite for informatization - the level of telephone installation - is very low. Number of telephones per 1000 inhabitants in a number of countries (as of 1991): Switzerland - 1289; USA - 650; Great Britain - 521; USSR -111... Türkiye -55. As of 1993, Russia ranks 33rd in the world and 21st in Europe in terms of telephone equipment. According to experts, about 7-8 million personal computers operate in Russia, and their annual replenishment with domestic products does not exceed 1 million units;

In the USA there are more than 250 million telephone sets and about 40 million personal computers.

By 2000, the number of users in the world will reach 1 billion and the number of PCs purchased will exceed the number of TVs purchased.

Thus, Russia is at the initial stage of informatization, the United States is in its middle phase.

5.2. Economic conditions and prerequisites for informatization

The main economic prerequisite is the demonopolization of the economy.

The volumes of financial resources allocated and required for informatization differ by three orders of magnitude (the cost of a super computer is about $15-20 million). The economic crisis continues in the country. The spontaneous conversion process does not allow using the capabilities of the military sphere for the needs of informatization. Today, the regions have real financial resources for informatization.

To produce the 300 million telephone sets Russia needs, a radical restructuring of a number of industries is required, which will require enormous capital investments. The solution to the problem of telephone installation in Russia is carried out mainly through space communication systems (the introduction of the Express system, which has a throughput capacity 3-4 times greater than that of the currently operating Horizon system, joint operation of military satellites, etc.).

Sales of “information” electronics in the United States in the 80s grew at a rate of 10 times per decade.

5.3. Political conditions and prerequisites for informatization

A necessary prerequisite for informatization, as already noted, is democratization. Only democracy needs a perfect information environment.

When analyzing the political conditions of informatization in Russia, it is important to note that in Russia the roots of democracy as a norm of political life are very shallow; the clearly insufficient pace of democratization in Russia is associated with the illegitimate nature of modern government.

The lack of political stability continues to hinder the influx of foreign investment into Russia, some of which could be aimed at informatization.

Conditions and prerequisites for informatization in the cultural and spiritual sphere.

1) the degree of motivational readiness of the population to use new information technologies. According to sociologists, the general readiness of Russians to implement new information technologies is typical for 72.7%, while practical readiness is 57.2%.

2) computer literacy of Russians does not correspond to the need to ensure high rates of informatization, not to mention information culture.

3) the information lifestyle is not yet the norm of life in Russia, and information does not occupy a high position in the system of human values. The new information consciousness is in its infancy (the value of a person’s intellect is, at best, on the same level as his material wealth).

4) achieving high cultural and spiritual potential, the components of which are knowledge accumulated by society, embodied spiritual wealth and people who are carriers of knowledge. Unfortunately, the competitiveness of domestic scientific developments is falling (1980 - 9.1%, 1985 - 7.4%, 1987 - 5%), there are 2.5 times fewer students in Russia than in the USA, the level of awareness of domestic scientists 100 times lower than its American counterpart.

5.4. Initial conditions and alternative options for the development of the informatization process in Russia

Today in Russia there is a process of destruction of the existing preconditions for informatization, corresponding to the classical approach to the informatization of society. Extraordinary solutions are needed to overcome the technological gap between Russia and the advanced countries of the world, for example:

borrowing advanced information technology while simultaneously ensuring Russia's information security;

determination of the formative features of social transformations of the future (for example, harmonization of the information and environmental principles of society);

using information comfort as a fundamental principle;

active search for constructive solutions to social problems based on the symbiosis of “left-hemisphere” and “right-hemisphere” communication mechanisms. The world is dominated by the Western version of informatization, designed for rational perception. Russia, on the other hand, is a “right-hemisphere” region, and proper consideration of this circumstance can allow the country to sharply increase the pace of informatization and, in its own way, catch up with information-advanced countries.

5.5. Conditions and prerequisites for informatization in the social sphere

The social sphere is the process of expanded reproduction of man as an individual, as a subject of the historical process.

On average, only 10% of the potential abilities of the human brain are used. Significantly improving this indicator, bringing it closer to the objective limit of human capabilities is the most serious task of society, to which the progress of information technology and technology must make its contribution.

To what extent do information and information technologies now contribute to improving the “quality of life” and contribute to improving the conditions for the “reproduction” of the individual?

This requires free access of every person to social and everyday (information centers of municipalities, prefectures, etc.), political, economic, cultural, spiritual, and other information. The very fact of having computers at home (in the family), in kindergartens, schools and universities takes on special social significance.

5.6. Social structure of society from an information point of view

When building a social structure according to one of the criteria: type of property, standard of living, gender, age, etc., it is necessary to supplement the resulting structure with an “information slice.” It is obvious, for example, that young people have a more positive attitude towards informatization compared to older people. In other options for structuring society, the “information profile” is not so obvious; special sociological research is needed. Without such knowledge, it is impossible to effectively involve various social groups in the process of informatization.

6. Formation of the information environment of society

Modern society cannot exist in conditions of sensory hunger - a comprehensive information field is absolutely necessary for its development and self-organization.

Unfortunately, in scientific literature and journalism the information environment is often interpreted as synonymous with the technosphere, which is a reflection of the technocratic approach. Nowadays, throughout the world, in the process of informatization, the development of software and hardware means of informatization (“hardware” + software) strongly prevails. A paradoxical situation develops when very high-quality technology processes low-quality information that is inadequate to social processes.

There is practically no social information system (SIS) in Russia.

SSI involves the creation of a hierarchy in social information. In social management, information about the excess of the values ​​of key parameters beyond the appropriate regulatory limits should be used. If a key parameter is within these limits, information about its values ​​is provided only upon request. Information on the remaining set of parameters is requested only if key parameters exceed regulatory thresholds. For example, 10-12% is the threshold for the level of unemployment in society that requires drastic decisions, 14 is a coefficient characterizing the catastrophic ratio of the incomes of the richest 10% and the poorest 10% of society.

It is important to note that there are both objective and subjective reasons for the failure of the SSI. The main objective reasons are the difficulty of determining the composition of key management parameters and their regulatory thresholds, the lack of sufficient financial resources and computer software. Among the subjective reasons can be cited an insufficient level of education and public opinion that is unformed regarding the need for the scientific foundations of social management.

In particular, the SSI should contain social and household statistics to inform the population. Social information is collected and summarized by the State Statistics Committee of the CIS and the State Statistics Committee of the Russian Federation. The journal “Bulletin of Statistics” is published.

The most important concept that needs to be defined when studying the information environment of society is the concept of “information potential of society”.

The information potential of society in a broad sense is the information resource accumulated in society.

The information potential of society in the narrow sense is an activated, put into action information resource.

The information potential of society is the information resource of society in unity with the means, methods and conditions that allow it to be activated and used effectively.

This set of means, methods and conditions should include not only the means of the information technosphere, but also social means, methods and structures that contribute to the reproduction and development of the infosphere, improving the information culture of society and its intellectual potential. Thus, the unity of the processes of computerization, mediatization and intellectualization is necessary.

Social structures and institutions necessary to activate the information resources of society are, for example, educational and family institutions. Of particular importance in terms of the intellectualization of social systems are the selection and placement of personnel, the selection of talents, and the determination of the place and role of each individual intellect (each personality) in the system. Here it is important to use methods for determining intellectual abilities, professional guidance and others that are widely used abroad.

The level of education of women is essential for the success of the process of intellectualization of society, since it is mainly through the female line that the cultural experience of generations is transmitted, mainly the mother lays the foundations of the child’s intelligence in the family.

By analogy with human cognitive structures studied by psychology, it is important to highlight the cognitive structures of society and its subsystems. These are structures of social memory, public consciousness and public opinion, scientific and generally creative schools and movements, spiritual communication, etc.

Social intelligence - concept.

Currently, an important direction is being formed - the intellectualization of social systems (enterprises, administrative apparatus, public organizations, spheres of science, art, mass media).

It is important, as part of the work on informatization of society, to organize research of an applied nature (preparation of methods, projects, recommendations) to increase the intellectual level of certain social subsystems.

We are talking about the formation of an information environment using social engineering methods as the basis of an intellectual environment. This becomes the most important task of applied sociological analysis.

According to UNESCO, in 1982, the youth of our country ranked 2nd in the world in terms of the youth intellectualization coefficient, and by the beginning of the 90s it was already 42nd. Schoolchildren cannot cope with tests created 10-15 years ago with the average student in mind. And the point here is not innate stupidity: it has been proven that intelligence changes throughout life depending on whether a person exercises it.

The world can currently be divided into four groups of countries:

countries producing raw materials, food and consumer goods;

countries producing technical products under foreign licenses and partially original technologies;

countries producing original technologies;

knowledge producing countries.

The United States allows itself to “lose ground” in any field of activity (allowing goods from Japan into its market, etc.), but not in the production of knowledge.

The USA has a maximum qualified population - a population capable of adapting to new technologies (reception, technology transfer) due to the level of education.

As of 1995, there were 12.5 million students in the USA, and 2.6 million students in Russia.

A number of countries with modern information technologies receive scientific information and knowledge mainly from the USA and other countries, i.e. they are unable to create the knowledge that should fill the national information environment. Such societies are not informational.

Information culture is:

a new type of communication that allows the individual to freely enter information existence;

freedom of access and access to information existence at all levels from global to local, since the intranational, intrastate type of information existence is as untenable as national science;

a new type of thinking, formed as a result of the liberation of a person from routine information and intellectual work, among the features that define it, the latter’s orientation towards self-development and self-learning is already clearly manifested today.

The concept of “information literacy” was first introduced in 1977 in the United States and used in the national higher education reform program. The American Library Association defines an information literate person as a person who is able to identify, organize, evaluate information, and use it most effectively.

Academician A.P. Ershov understands computer literacy as “possession of the skills to solve problems using a computer, the ability to plan actions and foresee their consequences, understanding the basic ideas of computer science, an understanding of the role of information technology in the life of society.”

The relationship between the concepts of computer, information literacy and information culture.

The composition of the information technosphere as the basis of the information environment of society.

Review of types of laptop PCs.

Group 1: programmable calculators, electronic notebooks (organizers);

Group 2: pocket computers;

Group 3: computers with pen input (personal digital assistants);

Group 4: PC notebooks;

Group 5: PC-subnotebooks

Group 6: portable PCs;

Group 7: portable workstations.

Video text systems, with the help of which you can obtain any information from the library (archive) without leaving your home at any time of the day or night.

Telecommunication systems - overview of the networks used. Internet as a means of communication. According to some estimates, the number of computers with access to any Internet services in the spring of 1995 was close to 30 million.

The Internet can be viewed from different perspectives:

The narrowest view. The Internet is a collection of networks that are continuously interconnected so that any computer on the network “sees” any other, i.e. can transmit a data packet to it and receive a response in a split second;

Widest view. The Internet is a cybernetic space, an idealistic substance that gives birth to a cyberculture with its own way of thinking, its own language.

7. Information lifestyle: society and personality in the conditions of informatization

In the context of the deployment of informatization, each of the dialectically interconnected principles of a person: physical, mental and social requires special consideration, because only in this case the new opportunities of the information society can be fully used for the comprehensive development of man. Failure to take into account the specifics of these human principles and spontaneous informatization is fraught with negative social consequences of informatization that are difficult to fully predict.

7.1. Accounting for the physical principle. Problems of adaptation of people with disabilities in the modern information environment

People with disabilities require a special approach to the development, first of all, of information input/output devices in a computer. For example: in many countries of the world, special synthesizers are widely used for blind and visually impaired people, allowing voice input of information; Those who have almost completely lost mobility can work on a computer, entering information with eye movements using special helmets.

In Russia, a special program on computer technology has been created, adapted for people with various physical disabilities (for example, in Moscow, a computer technique has been developed and successfully used for the treatment of strabismus in children, which is very important, since in every thirtieth family a child suffers from this disease); There are special computer rooms, as well as training centers for specialists from among people with disabilities.

It is necessary to develop employment programs using computers at home for people who are unable to travel to work. The implementation of such programs will allow society not to lose the activity, educational and intellectual potential of people, and will also reduce social tension.

7.2. Determination of maximum permissible stress on the psyche

This is due to the fact that different people and different social groups have different psychological resistance to informatization processes.

Women who have taken the main “blow” in the field of practical computer work require special attention. Further, for example, it is known that young people and older people are most susceptible to being “zombified” on television. There is a need for legal restrictions on the volume and content of television exposure, developed on the basis of in-depth scientific research by psychologists.

On the agenda is the active development of a scientific direction - information (computer) psychology.

This science, apparently, should investigate such problems as:

a person’s fear of rapidly improving information technology, the growth and complexity of information flows (computer phobia);

“information mania” as a disease of a person who gives priority to communicating with computers rather than with people;

fatigue of people when working on a computer, etc.

The term “cyberdisease” has already appeared, which affects people who are often in virtual reality.

There are already significant developments in this direction. For example, a chandelier invented by the outstanding Russian biophysicist A.L. Chizhevsky, saturating the air with aeroins, neutralizes the smog of positive ions in computer rooms, compensates for the loss of negative charges in the human body, and relieves fatigue and stress. A number of monochrome laptops have a large LCD screen that provides up to 64 shades of gray, which reduces eye fatigue.

In socio-economic terms, the practical implementation of the existing regulatory provision on additional payments to persons who constantly use computer equipment in their work is very important.

7.3. Options for socialization of various social groups

In the conditions of informatization, all modern means of communication and computers should make the accounting of this specificity more perfect, and not level it out by standardizing a person.

Let us dwell on the main social problems and options for solving them in the context of informatization:

The problem of language communication.

Language communication forms the core of informatization. This means that electronic means of informatization must be organically integrated into the network of the language environment that naturally develops for each person. In Russia, the widespread distribution of non-Russianized software and the formation of public opinion about the normality of such a situation is a social problem with serious long-term consequences.

Information science and computer linguistics tools for mass application must be developed. Available funds do not meet social needs either in terms of availability or price.

Personal information security.

Information security refers to the state of security of the information environment of society, ensuring its formation and development in the interests of citizens, organizations and the state.

Ensuring the information security of an individual means his right to receive objective information and assumes that the information received by a person from various sources does not interfere with the free formation and development of his personality.

The influence on the individual may include:

Targeted information pressure with the aim of changing the worldview, political views and moral and psychological state of people;

Dissemination of false, distorted, incomplete information;

Using people's inadequate perception of reliable information.

Information influences are dangerous or useful not so much in themselves, but because they control powerful material-energy processes. The essence of the influence of information lies precisely in its ability to control material and energy processes, the parameters of which are many orders of magnitude higher than the information itself.

Scientists have found that users in the pseudo-real world are much more susceptible to suggestion and hypnosis than in the ordinary world. Programming a game program for a particular installation is not difficult. A “virtual” system can be infected with a virus that will encode words, which will allow for further “zombification”.

Abroad, monitoring the observance of citizens' rights in this regard is the competence of special commissioners for the protection of citizens' rights in information systems.

Computer crime, viruses.

A computer virus is a special program written by someone with malicious intent and capable of self-replication. One of the most popular anti-virus programs - “AIDSTEST” - its author D. Lozinsky sometimes updates even twice a week.

The attempt of virus creators, usually young people, to realize themselves in virus writing is associated with a number of reasons: the desire to assert themselves, to “make a splash,” as well as the lack of conscious life goals. D. Lozinsky considers them pitiful creatures.

7.4. Information lifestyle

There are two meanings of this concept:

1. the way of life of people in an information society, where all aspects of life are largely permeated by information relations based on modern information technologies;

2. information aspect of lifestyle.

Today, scientists and specialists are raising the question of the need to develop an information ecology that shapes a healthy information lifestyle of people in the social and natural environment. Compliance with the rules of information hygiene leads to a consciously chosen information lifestyle, on the slope of which a person does not regret that he lived it in vain.

Lifestyle is understood as a system of life activities of society as a whole, social groups, individuals, determined by socio-economic conditions.

The main feature of a lifestyle is its systematic nature, which manifests itself in the fact that the activities included in it are interconnected: a change in one of them leads to a change in the other.

What are the activities that make up a lifestyle? These are: - labor;

socio-political;

Socio-cultural;

leisure activities.

Let us consider the new opportunities provided by informatization for improving a number of the listed components of the lifestyle.

Socio-political activity takes on new depth with the use of interactive television (television with feedback). Adding a transmitting device with a feedback remote control to a regular TV allows the viewer to respond to questions from TV presenters, take part in surveys, voting, etc. A new market for on-demand digital television on a computer screen is also being created.

Educational activities

Actively developing pedagogical informatics deals with the problems of creating and implementing the concept of education for people who will live in the information society. Among the goals of informatization of education, along with universal ones (development of intellectual abilities, humanization and accessibility of education), a number of specific ones are also defined - computer literacy, information support for education (knowledge and data bases), individualized education based on new computer learning technologies. Multimedia, in particular, will help bring about a paradigm shift in education: from “filling the vessel” to “igniting the torch,” i.e. disclosure and development of individual human capabilities.

The emergence of multimedia leads to the creation of not only new jobs, but also special opportunities for changing the culture of everyday, industrial (educational) and economic behavior.

Hypertext as a teaching tool today is beginning to be actively used in the educational process, making its contribution to improving the individualization of learning.

In developed countries, for example, in the UK, the education law guarantees the right of students from the age of 6 to use new information technologies in the educational process.

Household activities

Household computers, in principle, have more limited capabilities compared to professional ones (in terms of memory resources, a set of external devices, etc.). However, today, according to world standards, a household (home) computer is a machine equipped with a microphone, CD-ROM player, stereo speakers, fax, etc. In Russia, a home computer is often understood as an extremely truncated model.

Household computers are intended for mass use at home when solving computing, educational, information and reference, gaming and other tasks.

Important areas of application of household computers also include:

ensuring people's information needs (access to various databases and knowledge, communication with owners of other computers via communication lines, etc.);

automatic household management (control of microclimate, lighting, electricity consumption and heating system, household appliances, ensuring the integrity and safety of the home, etc.).

Social and cultural activities

The development of multimedia technologies and the increase in the place they occupy in the life of modern man has affected, of course, not only science and games, but also art.

For example, the first CD-ROM “Treasures of Russia” made in multimedia technology (cost $55), dedicated to Russian art of the 10th - early 20th centuries, contains maps of the Russian state in the dynamics of its development and the so-called “time line”, allowing for analysis development of Russian art in time and space.

Leisure activities

There is a clear trend in the development of “infotainment” in the world. Entertainment information media are divided into reproductive media and participation media (interactive media).

In one decade, 4 generations of interactive tools were created. Compact discs mark the arrival of the fifth generation. The first three generations of interactive media combine increasingly complex versions of video games. The fourth generation combined video games and home computers while expanding the range of entertainment to include logic games, music and art interactive programs. Currently, computer animation can be distinguished among the latest achievements. The introduction of optical discs, which offer the player an alternative choice of solutions, is the first step towards fifth-generation products.

In the USA, systems are being purchased that provide playback of a full-length film in CD-Interactive mode on a large television screen.

According to the forecasts of a number of experts, the home computer, together with a variety of on-line services, text and audiovisual news, and video games, will in the future win over television and destroy interactive television.

In the context of the rapid improvement of information technologies and the unlimited development of the opportunities they provide, the most pressing issue continues to be the question of the target life attitudes of a particular individual.

8. Post-industrial, information society: social structure and specifics of labor activity

8.1. Trends in changes in parameters, ratios and types of relationships between social groups during the transition to a post-industrial, information society

Analysis and forecasting of changes in social structure under the influence of informatization must be carried out in the following areas:

changes in the social groups themselves (their size, qualitative parameters);

changes in percentages between different social groups;

changing types of relationships between social groups.

Such analysis and forecasting of changes in social structure are carried out under the assumption that social connections are expressed to the extent that it is, in principle, possible to talk about society as a system.

However, it should be noted that the problem of “atomization” of society is being discussed more and more widely by scientists today. Since obtaining information about what is happening in the country and in the world no longer requires direct communication between people, a person can become more and more isolated from society, subject to the illusion of independence from it. It is necessary to cultivate a sense of responsibility of each person for what is happening in the world, achieving a clear understanding of the interdependence of all people. This enormous task falls primarily on the education system and the media.

8.2. Let us consider the nature of changes in social structure predicted by scientists under the influence of informatization in the above areas:

The number of social groups will increase, which will naturally lead to a decrease in their average size. Modern information technologies provide a real opportunity to more accurately and quickly take into account people's interests.

The qualitative parameters of social groups will improve in terms of such parameters as level of education, intelligence, etc.

The new percentages between social groups distinguished in society according to various criteria will probably look like this:

1) the proportion of people engaged in intellectual work - intellectuals - will increase. The emergence of a special class of “intellectuals” is predicted.

For those who do not want or cannot work intellectually, work is expected in the field of information services, which, as previously noted, should account for more than 50% of the employment structure in the information society, or in the field of material production.

2) the number of working people will increase.

Older people will be able to continue working even after retirement, as the working age bar will rise (the body ages before the brain).

The pyramidal socio-economic structure will increasingly give way to a network-like (mosaic) structure. The structure of the network more accurately corresponds to new information technology.

American researchers note that “the convergence of changing social and personal values ​​with new technology and energy-economic needs makes the formation of a mosaic society essentially inevitable.”

8.3. Personal autonomy

In the hierarchy of values, one of the highest places is (along with innovation and originality) personal autonomy, which is currently not characteristic of traditional society. Personality is realized only through belonging to a specific corporation, being an element in a strictly defined system of corporate relations. If a person is not included in any corporation, he is not a person. In a technogenic civilization, a special type of personal autonomy arises: a person can change his corporate connections, since he is not rigidly attached to them, he can and is capable of building his relationships with people very flexibly, immersing himself in different social communities, in different cultural traditions.

Modern science and technical creativity are drawing fundamentally new types of objects into the orbit of human activity, the development of which requires new strategies. We are talking about objects that are self-developing systems characterized by synergistic effects. Their development is always accompanied by the passage of the system through special states of instability (bifurcation points), and at these moments small random influences can lead to the emergence of new structures, new levels of organization of the system, which affect the already established levels and transform them.

8.4. The main incentives for work activity in the industrial, post-industrial and information society

If in the pre-information period of its development, society effectively used a person’s desire for satiety and material comfort as a stimulus to action, then during the transition to the information society the effect of these incentives sharply weakens, since satisfactory satisfaction of a person’s physiological needs requires little effort.

In the information society, it is necessary to find a social amplifier for weakly expressed spiritual stimuli of human activity.

Amplifiers that stimulate human activity can be:

guarantees of increased social status;

the opportunity to receive an elite education;

public fame.

special organization of socio-economic space.

Among the factors contributing to the formation of a socio-economic climate favorable for the development of technological innovation, J. Stuteville especially highlights the so-called “information pool”.

The effect of a new “information pool” occurs when the concentration of bright individuals “per square mile of area provided with the necessary infrastructure” of a newly created industrial region begins to significantly exceed the “critical level”. The resulting surge in the intensity of knowledge exchange, supported by favorable conditions for their immediate practical implementation (within the framework of the production service infrastructure of an actively developing new industrial region), leads to a sharp acceleration of the “idea - technology - product” innovation cycle characteristic of such a region.

An example of this type of region, where the socio-economic effect of the “information pool” has been steadily observed for more than a decade and has therefore become the object of close study in recent years by experts from many countries around the world, is usually called the Silicon Valley in California and the “high technology corridor” , located near Boston along Route 128. The scientific base of Silicon Valley is Stanford University, “Road 128” is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

8.5. Specifics of labor activity in a post-industrial, information society

The main features of work activity will be:

physical movements will be replaced to one degree or another by information connections, i.e., figuratively speaking, the movement of people will be replaced by the movement of messages (signals sent by people). Today, according to experts, 90% of all transport movements of people are associated with information purposes (meetings, signatures, certificates, etc.). Modern “homework” sharply reduces the required time for people to be present at workplaces and in educational institutions. This will require a radical restructuring of production and educational processes, a significant increase in the culture and consciousness of people, as well as the development of a new control and evaluation apparatus.

due to changes in the structure of the economy and corresponding changes in employment, there will be a need to retrain large masses of the population; During his active life, a person in the information society will be forced to change his profession several times.

the demands on a person’s intellectual and creative abilities and on their psychophysical characteristics will increase. The problem of unemployed people will arise, i.e. people who are at an active age, but whose ability to work will not meet the new requirements. The larger this group is, the more acute the problem of their employment will be.

the problem of adequately high payment for intellectual work and the readiness of representatives of other social groups to do this will arise.

So, for example, a computer programmer in the USA on average earns about $40 thousand per year (for comparison: a taxi driver - 40 thousand, a police officer - from 33 to 47 thousand, an engineer at an aerospace plant - $60 thousand per year) .

There is a serious danger of “roboticization” of a person engaged in information work.

Today, total electronic surveillance covers about 2/3 of the 12 million people working at displays in the United States (by 2000 there will be 40 million) and extends from blue-collar workers to specialist engineers, accountants and doctors. As a result, “technostress” is growing, demands from workers to return to personalized control as “allowing for dialogue”, protests against the invasion of the “private area” of working life, calls from sociologists to trust new generations of workers, to rely on their self-discipline and self-control for the purposes of both economic and social progress of modern production.

8.6. The problem of preventing the formation of a consumer society

The emergence of information as consumer goods leads to qualitative changes in consumption and lifestyle, and gives rise to a new model of individual life. In the conditions of the information society, not just material and spiritual benefits, but organizational and information factors - “orders” - begin to play a particularly important role. The level and way of life begin to depend not so much on the amount of bread, meat, clothing, books received, but on the level of services, culture, education, etc.

However, the rapid increase in the level of services can lead to the fact that a significant number of people “get lost” in this sea of ​​abundance, joining the race for the quality of services for their own sake, and not for the sake of human development. The activity side of people’s lifestyle can be minimized and the consumer side can be maximized, which will ultimately lead to the degradation of society.

This problem has already manifested itself in developed countries of the world. For example, the advantage of the Japanese economic model is its ability to overcome a kind of “demonstration effect,” which economist F. Hirsch defined as the phenomenon of “positional economics,” in which it is not the absolute level of consumption that is important, but the relative one, in comparison with other members of society. In an economy where it is important not to consume, but to consume more than others, the individual gain of individuals does not add happiness to society as a whole. For example, what becomes important is not the quality of the car, but its relative prestige compared to the neighbor’s car. Life in such a society turns into an endless "rat race". Inequality is turning from a means of stimulating producers into an end in itself.

It is clear that the movement towards equality in Japanese society is not a universal equalization. The very way of self-expression becomes different. The American competes in consumption, the Japanese compete in production. A new quality of motivation emerges.

Labor as a need in the conditions of the information society is one of the supporting elements of I. Masuda’s concept of a post-industrial society, some elements of which are already being implemented in practice in Japan. This theory contrasts the development cycle of an industrial-type society: “material needs - production of material goods - consumption - satisfaction - development of material productive force - material needs” with the development cycle of a post-industrial type society: “needs for achievement - production of information - action to achieve a goal - satisfaction - development of information productive power - the need for achievement."

We are talking about a new quality of the Japanese model. This, by the way, is also evidenced by the fact that competition in the world market is forcing American corporations to increasingly use Japanese experience.

To overcome the danger of the emergence of a consumer society, it is necessary:

systematically throughout the state it is necessary to search and select people interested in the very process of activity, creative work with the further creation of favorable conditions for them. This direction should be of a priority and strategic nature for society and the state;

to form public opinion about the need for work and creativity, to cultivate an attitude towards this from childhood.

create a flexible, perfect system of material and moral incentives for activity as such.

In the history of the development of civilizational society there were only a few

information revolutions - transformations of social relations due to fundamental changes in the field of information processing. The consequence of such transformations was the acquisition of a new quality by human society.

The first revolution was associated with the invention of writing, which led to

a giant qualitative and quantitative leap. There is an opportunity to transfer knowledge from generation to generation. The civilization that mastered writing developed faster than others and reached a higher cultural and economic level. Examples include Ancient Egypt, the countries of Mesopotamia, and China.

The second (mid-16th century) was caused by the invention of printing,

which radically changed industrial society, culture, and organization of activities. It has become possible not only to save information, but also to make it widely accessible. All this accelerated the development of science and technology and helped the industrial revolution. Books crossed the borders of countries, which contributed to the beginning of the consciousness of universal civilization.

The third (end of the 19th century) was due to the invention of electricity,

thanks to which the telegraph, telephone, and radio appeared, making it possible to quickly transmit and accumulate information in any volume. This revolution coincided with a period of rapid development of natural science.

The fourth (70s of the XX century) is associated with the invention of microprocessor

technology and the advent of the personal computer. Computers, computer networks, and data transmission systems (information communications) are created using microprocessors and integrated circuits. This period is characterized by three fundamental innovations:

transition from mechanical and electrical means of information conversion to electronic ones;

miniaturization of all components, devices, instruments, machines;

creation of software-controlled devices and processes.

The latest information revolution brings to the fore a new industry - the information industry, associated with the production of technical means, methods, technologies for the production of new knowledge. The most important component of the information industry is information technology.

2.2.2 Stages of development of information technologies.

Information technology (IT) is a process that uses

a set of means and methods for collecting, processing and transmitting data (primary information) to obtain new quality information about the state of an object, process or phenomenon. Modern IT relies on advances in computer technology and communications.

Stage 1 (until the second half of the 19th century) - “manual” information

technology, the tools of which were: pen, inkwell, book. Communications were carried out manually by sending letters, packages, and dispatches through the mail. The main purpose of technology is to present information in the required form.

Stage 2 (from the end of the 19th century) - “mechanical” technology, tools

which consisted of: a typewriter, a telephone, a voice recorder, and mail equipped with more advanced means of delivery. The main goal of technology is to present information in the required form using more convenient means.

Stage 3 (40s - 60s) - “electric” technology, tools

which consisted of: mainframe computers and related software, electric typewriters, photocopiers, portable voice recorders. The purpose of technology is changing - the emphasis begins to move from the form of presenting information to the formation of its content.

Stage 4 (from the beginning of the 70s) - “electronic” technology, tools

which become large computers and automated control systems (ACS) and information retrieval systems (IRS) created on their basis, equipped with a wide range of basic and specialized software systems. The emphasis is shifting towards generating more meaningful information.

Stage 5 (from the mid-80s) - “computer” technology, the main

the toolkit of which is a personal computer with a wide range of standard software products for various purposes. At this stage, the process of personalization of automated control systems occurs (creation of decision support systems for different specialists). In connection with the transition to microprocessor technology, household appliances, communication devices, and office equipment are undergoing significant changes. Computer networks (local and global) are beginning to develop widely.

1. Information society

1.1Information - page 2

1.2Information revolutions - p.3

1.3 The concept of the information society - p.5

1.4Features and characteristics - page 7

2. An example of the information society - the Internet - p.8

3.Formation of the information society (USA and Europe) - p.9

4.References - page 12

1. INFORMATION SOCIETY

1 Information.

The existence of humanity on planet Earth, the formation and development of society and the state are associated with information and are conditioned by it.

Information– this is new information that allows us to improve the processes associated with the transformation of matter, energy and information itself. Information is information that expands the end user's knowledge base.

Information is a fundamental scientific concept. It is widely used both in science and in everyday life. Information in the history of the development of civilization has always played a decisive role and served as the basis for decision-making at all levels and stages of development of society and the state.

There are three approaches to defining the concept of “Information”: anthropocentric, technocentric and non-deterministic. The anthropocentric approach is that information is identified with information or facts that can be obtained and assimilated, i.e. converted into knowledge (for example, this approach is used in Russian legislation). The technocentric approach is that information is presented as data, which cannot in all cases be considered information (for example, on the Internet, the same data transmitted by the server can be interpreted by the client as different information depending on what hardware and software methods it has and how they are configured). The non-deterministic approach is to refuse to define information on the grounds that this concept is fundamental.

Computer science as a discipline defines the methodological principles of information modeling of the surrounding reality and manipulation of such models using computer technology. It studies information, its properties, criteria and structures in natural and artificial information communications, involves the study of principles, models, algorithms for storing, transforming, analyzing and synthesizing information, as well as their software and a priori implementation.

1.2. Information revolutions.

In the history of social development there are several information revolutions, associated with fundamental changes in the sphere of production, processing and circulation of information, leading to radical transformations of social relations. As a result of such transformations, society acquired, in a certain sense, a new quality.

First information revolution is also associated with the invention of writing, which led to a gigantic qualitative and quantitative leap in the information development of society. It became possible to record knowledge on a material medium, thereby alienating it from the manufacturer and passing it on from generation to generation.

Second information revolution(mid-sixteenth century) caused by the invention of printing (first printers Gutenberg and Ivan Fedorov). The possibility of replication and active dissemination of information has emerged, and people's access to sources of knowledge has increased. This revolution radically changed society and created additional opportunities for large sections of the population to become familiar with cultural values.

Third information revolution(late nineteenth century) was due to the invention of electricity, thanks to which the telegraph, telephone, and radio appeared, making it possible to quickly transmit and accumulate information in significant volumes. The consequence of this revolution is an increase in the degree of dissemination of information, an increase in the information “coverage” of the population by broadcasting means. The role of information as a means of influencing the development of society and the state has increased significantly, and the possibility of prompt communication between people has emerged.

The fourth information revolution(mid-twentieth century) is associated with the invention of computing technology and the advent of the personal computer, the creation of communication networks and telecommunications. It has become possible to accumulate, store, process and transmit information in electronic form. The efficiency and speed of creating and processing information have increased, almost unlimited amounts of information began to accumulate in computer memory, and the speed of transmitting, searching and receiving information has increased.

Today we are experiencing fifth information revolution, associated with the formation and development of trans-border global information and telecommunication networks, covering all countries and continents, penetrating into every home and simultaneously affecting each individual and huge masses of people. The most striking example of such a phenomenon and the result of the revolution is the Internet. The essence of this revolution is the integration in a single information space around the world of software and hardware, communications and telecommunications, information reserves or knowledge reserves as a unified information telecommunication infrastructure in which legal entities and individuals, state authorities and local governments actively operate. As a result, the speed and volume of processed information are increasing incredibly, new unique opportunities for producing, transmitting and distributing information, searching and receiving information, and new types of traditional activities in these networks appear.

We are witnessing a significant increase in the role and place of information in the life of the individual, society, and state, and the impact of information on the development of the individual, society, and state. Information has turned into a powerful, tangible resource that has even greater value than natural financial, labor and other resources. Information has become a commodity that is bought and sold. Information has turned into a weapon, information wars arise and end. The cross-border information network Internet is actively developing and entering our lives.

1. 3.The concept of the information society.

All this transforms the life of the individual, society, and state. Civilization in general and each of us in particular are in the stage of forming a new type of society - information society. This society is still unclear to many. The social system and law, as one of the regulators of this system, lag significantly behind the pace of development of the information society, from the incomprehensible speed of the “offensive” of new information technologies and the World Wide Web of the Internet, the “building material” of the information society.

The emergence of the term " Information society" associated with the US program to create the National Research and Education Network in 1991, NREN (National Research and Education Network), which was supposed to facilitate the development of the national information infrastructure NII (National Information Infrastructure).

In December 1993, the European Community responded by developing a series of projects to create a European Information Society (IS). In December 1994, the Information Society Project Office (ISPO) was created. By the fall of 1998, ISPO was already considering more than 2,000 projects to create an information society. The Information Society Activity Center ISAC (Information Society Activity Center) has been created, whose task is to develop a system of criteria for a country’s proximity to the information society. The implementation of projects for informatization of society is carried out at the level of governments that are members of the ISPO countries.

In July 2000, in Okinawa, the G8 countries adopted the document “Charter of the Global Information Society,” which sets out the basic principles for states to join such a society. The G8 proclaimed the most important provisions that countries should apply when implementing policies to form and develop the information society. The Charter of the Global Information Society has four sections:

harnessing the power of digital technologies;

bridging the electronic digital divide;

promoting inclusive participation;

further development.

What is it Information society? In accordance with the concept of Z. Brzezinski, D. Bell, O. Toffler, supported by other foreign scientists, the information society is a type of post-industrial society. Considering social development as a “change of stages,” proponents of this concept of the information society associate its formation with the dominance of the “fourth” information sector of the economy, following the three well-known sectors - agriculture, industry and the service economy. At the same time, they argue that capital and labor, as the basis of an industrial society, give way to information and knowledge in the information society.

1. 4. Features and characteristics

The information society is a special society, unknown to history. It is difficult to define it, but we can list the main features and characteristics:

Availability of information infrastructure, consisting of cross-border information and telecommunication networks and information resources distributed in them as knowledge reserves;

Massive use of personal computers connected to cross-border information and telecommunication networks (TITS). Precisely mass, otherwise it is not a society, but a collection of its individual members;

Preparedness of society members to work on personal computers and in cross-border information and telecommunication networks;

New forms and types of activities in TITS or in the virtual space (daily work activities in networks, purchase and sale of goods and services, communication and recreation, recreation and entertainment, medical care, etc.);

The ability for everyone to almost instantly receive complete, accurate and reliable information from TITS;

Almost instantaneous communication of every member of society with everyone, everyone with everyone and everyone with everyone (for example, chats based on interests on the Internet);

Transformation of media activities, integration of media and TITS, creation of a unified environment for the dissemination of mass information - multimedia;

The absence of geographical and geopolitical borders of the states participating in TITS, the “clash” and “breaking” of national legislations of countries in these networks, the formation of new international information law and legislation.

2. An example of the information society is the Internet.

Typical example information structure of such information society – Internet. Today, the Internet actively fills the information space in all countries and on all continents and is the main and active means of creating an information society.

There are two estimates of the volume of information content on the Internet. According to some data (the controlled Internet), at the beginning of 2000, the Internet contained more than 1 billion documents on 4 million servers; according to other data (the “invisible” or “deep” Internet), it contains more than 550 billion documents. In general, the volume of information resources on the Internet is growing exponentially.

Formation of the information society (using the example of the USA and Europe)

The USA and Europe are moving towards the information society along slightly different paths.

The USA was a kind of pioneer in forming the foundations for the practical development of information infrastructure - the technological basis of the information society. In 1993, the US Government released a report with plans for the development of a national information infrastructure (NII) (Agenda for Action). To study the problems associated with the construction of research institutes, a Working Group on Information Infrastructure Task Forse was created.

The specially prepared report recommended the basic principles for the formation of the information society: encouraging private investment; concept of universal access; assistance in technological innovation; providing interactive access; protecting privacy, security and network reliability; improved radio spectrum management; protection of intellectual property rights; coordination of government efforts; ensuring access to government information. In accordance with this report, the United States has set a course for the construction of an information superhighway as a technological means that allows everyone to find information, entertainment to their liking, and which is defined as the totality of all technologies associated with the production, processing, storage and distribution of information, be it television, computer networks, satellite broadcasting, commercial online companies.

Reports of working groups designed to study problems related to these processes are devoted to humanitarian topics - health care, education, preservation of privacy and information, protection of intellectual property rights, etc. Taking into account the global nature of the interaction of information and telecommunication technologies, an initiative from the national is gradually developing into a global one.

Europe also pays serious attention to the formation of the information society. A strategy for Europe's entry into the information society has been developed, recommendations for entry into it have been prepared and are being implemented.

Resolutions and documents of the Council of Europe are devoted to various aspects of the formation of the information society in European countries. The European Commission established a Forum in February 1995 to discuss common problems in the development of the information society. Its 128 members represent users of new technologies, various social groups, content and service providers, network operators, government and international institutions. The purpose of the Forum is to trace the process of formation of the information society in such areas as the impact on the economy and employment; creation of social and democratic values ​​in the “virtual community”; impact on public and government services; education, retraining, training in the information society, cultural dimension and the future of media, sustainable development, technology and infrastructure.

If Europe cannot quickly and effectively adapt to the conditions of the information society, then it will face a loss of competitiveness in the face of the United States and Asian economies, as well as social alienation within the European community.

Almost every European country has a program dedicated to the formation of a national policy in building an information society, and this policy is perceived not as a tribute to fashion, but as an imperative, the failure of which is fraught with a loss of competitiveness of the entire country, a comparative decline in living standards, a loss of development rates and a setback from advanced economic, trade, technological positions.

If we consider the problem of the formation of the information society as a whole, the specificity of the modern moment is expressed in the fact that the further progress of information and telecommunication technologies depends not so much on breakthroughs in technology itself, but on how quickly the old norms governing traditionally different ones will be adapted to new realities sectors, telecommunications, television and other media.

society” is one of the key points...

Modern socio-economic system in theory informational society How society social networks

Coursework >> Sociology

... concepts « informational society"(information society), and “information society"(informational society) and " informational economics" and "information economics" respectively. The term " informational society" ...

Informatization of society

Information concept

Comes from Lat. “Informatio” - explanation, awareness, presentation.

Information is information about the world around us that reduces the degree of uncertainty in knowledge about it.

Information is presented in the form of messages.

Message – transmission of information in the form of pictures, text, drawings, sound, color, energy and nerve impulses, etc.

The term "information" should be distinguished from the term "data". Data is also presented in the form of messages.

Data is only stored, but not used. Data turns into information if it reduces the degree of uncertainty in knowledge about something, i.e. are useful and meaningful.

Let's write 10 six-digit numbers and give them to a friend. For him it is data. Now let's tell him that these are 10 telephone numbers of companies where there is decent work. Then it will become information.

Reducing the uncertainty of knowledge is the first property of information.

Information always requires a source and a recipient. This is the second property of information.

The paths and processes that ensure the transmission of messages from source to recipient are called information communications.

Transition to the information society.

There have been several information revolutions in the field of information processing.

The first is caused by the invention of writing, which allows information to be transmitted from generation to generation (approximately 3 thousand years BC).

The second is associated with the invention of printing, which allows you to duplicate information many times (XVI century)

The third is due to the invention of electrical transmission (telephone, telegraph, radio), which allows information to be transmitted instantly over long distances (late 19th century).

The fourth is associated with the creation of computers that make it possible to store large amounts of information and quickly process them.

The last revolution led to the creation of the information industry, as the production of hardware and software, information technologies for obtaining new knowledge.

Information technology (IT) is a description, a list of stages in the process of obtaining information of new quality based on the collection, processing and transmission of data.

In the process of development, society goes through several stages.

In an industrial society, more than 50% of the working population is employed in material production.

In a post-industrial society, more than 50% of the working population is employed in the service sector.

In the information society, more than 50% of the working population is engaged in the production, storage, processing and sale of information.

The information society exists in the USA, Japan and Western Europe.

After the information society comes the noosphere, in which the majority of workers will be engaged in intellectual activity and acquiring knowledge.

Informatization of society is an organized process of creating optimal conditions for meeting the information needs of citizens and organizations based on the formation and use of information resources.

Informatization should be distinguished from the computerization of society.

Information potential of society

Information resources, products and services.

Information resources – documents and their arrays in information systems (library, archive, fund), i.e. documented knowledge.

Information resources are strategic along with material, natural, labor, financial, and energy resources.

Information resources are used to create information products as sets of data generated by the manufacturer for the purpose of distribution.

An information product is distributed in the same ways as a material product, in particular through services. The legal basis of an information service must be an agreement between the provider and the recipient.

Information market

Information market is a system of economic, legal and organizational relations for trade in products of intellectual labor.

Unlike trade in a material product, information technologies and systems (licenses, patents, trademarks, know-how, engineering services, information, etc.) act as the subject of exchange.

For an information product, an important, distinctive feature is the ease of copying; therefore, copyright applies to it.

An information product on the market is considered in two aspects.

1. As a material product.
2. As an intellectual product.

The information market infrastructure is divided into 3 parts:

1. Technical (hardware).
2. Software.
3. Communication.

Introduction to Economic Informatics

Features of economic information

Economic information is a set of information about the processes of production, distribution and consumption of material goods.

Management of economic objects is always associated with the transformation of economic information, which is characterized by the following features:

1. Volume.

2. Relatively simple processing.

3. Cyclicity.

4. representation in the form of text and numbers.

An important characteristic of information is its adequacy.

Adequacy of information is the degree of correspondence of information to a real object in the surrounding world.

There are three types and three measures of adequacy:

1. Syntactic (structural)
2. Semantic (meaningful)
3. Pragmatic (benefits)

Syntactic adequacy reflects the formal, structural characteristics of information without connection with its meaning and usefulness.

Syntactic information = data.

Semantic adequacy reflects the semantic content and generalization of information.

Pragmatic adequacy reflects the degree of correspondence of information to the object. It serves as the basis for decision making.

Units of measurement and examples of the three types of adequacy are shown in Table 2.1.

Economic information systems (EIS) and technologies (EIT)

Concept of EIS

A system is a collection of heterogeneous elements designed to achieve a single goal.

A goal is a criterion for which its best value is achieved.

The concept of “best” is equivalent to the concepts of “most” or “smallest”, therefore a quantitative assessment can always be found for a goal, for example, the goal of an economic entity is maximum profit.

The concept of “function” must be distinguished from the goal.

The function involves achieving a specified value or range; the function may not be expressed as a number.

For example: “the machine is running” is a function; “The machine operates at maximum productivity” is the goal.

The features of the system are the following:

1. The elements of the system are interconnected and interact with each other and with the environment.

2. Each element of the system can be considered as an independent system. In this case, the function of the element turns into the goal of the system.

3. The system as a whole performs a specific task, which cannot be reduced to the sum of the functions of its elements.

4. Elements, when interacting, can change their content and internal structure.

The purpose of EIS is the efficient collection, storage, processing and issuance of economic information.

One EIS differs from another in the type of economic information.

An example of an EIS is the accounting department of an enterprise. It consists of heterogeneous elements: personnel, premises, computers, rules and instructions.

Composition of EIS

A subsystem is a part of the system, distinguished by some characteristic.

IS subsystems (including EIS) are called “software”.

The IS consists of the following software:

1. Information Support.
2. Technical.
3. Software.
4. Mathematical.
5. Legal.
6. Organizational.
7. Linguistic.

Information – a system of classification and coding of information (documentation system, information flow diagram, construction methodology, storage organization).

Technical – a set of equipment, instructional materials, maintenance personnel.

Software – a set of software tools for managing equipment and personnel. It is divided into: general system and application software.

Mathematical – a set of mathematical methods, models and algorithms used in EIS.

Legal – a set of legal norms that determine the creation, legal status and functioning of the EIS, and regulate the procedure for obtaining, converting and using information.

Organizational – a set of methods and means that determine the interaction of workers with equipment and among themselves during the operation of the EIS.

Linguistic – a system of language tools that are used to modify and operate the EIS, as well as the rules of interaction between equipment and personnel (dialogue interface).

It should be noted that the boundaries between the provisions are not strictly defined. Some elements of the EIS can be attributed to different subsystems.

For example: algorithms can be classified not as mathematical software, but as software. Job descriptions can be attributed not to legal, but to information or organizational support.

History of the development of EIS and EIT

In accordance with the technical base used to create and transmit information, there are five stages in the development of EIS and EIT:

1. Until the middle of the 19th century. Manual information technology.

Pen and paper.

Post and couriers.

2. Before the beginning of the 20th century. Mechanical technology.

Typewriter.

Telegraph.

3. Until the 60s of the XX century. Electrical technology.

Large tube computers.

Telephones and faxes.

4. Until the 80s of the XX century. Electronic technologies.

Transistor computers.

Automated control systems.

5. Since the 80s of the XX century. Computer techologies.

Personal computer, peripherals.

Computer networks.

EIT data processing

– this technology is used for well-structured data and stable processing algorithms. It is applied at the level of operational and accounting activities, and lower-level personnel management.

Features of data processing technology:

1. The law requires the company to store information about its business activities.
2. Well structured data.
3. Standard Data Processing Procedures.
4. Stability of data structures and algorithms.
5. The bulk of the work is performed automatically.
6. Isolation from other services.
7. Emphasis on the chronology of events.

The main components of data processing EIT are shown in Figure 3.1.

The following standard operations are used to process data:

1. Filter – sampling data according to some logical condition. For example, a sample of employees whose salary is above average.

2. Sorting – ordering data in ascending order of some criterion. For example, issuing a list of employees in alphabetical order.

3. Grouping – combining data into groups according to the values ​​of some criterion. For example, grouping a list of employees by department.

4. Generalization – obtaining summative, summary data for the group. For example, receiving “TOTAL” on salary slips.

5. Calculation - obtaining new data using formulas and algorithms.

EIT management

From the point of view of cybernetics, any control process comes down to the interaction of the controlled object and the control system. rice. 3.2.

Cybernetics is the science of control.

The control system receives information about the state of the controlled object, correlates it with the control criterion, and generates a control action.

For example, a controlled object can be: a machine, a workshop, a team; The management criterion may be the production plan.

The control action is a direct connection, and the state of the controlled object is feedback.

The implementation of direct and feedback is the main content of management services.

The technology mainly used is based on the principle of deflection, which consists of performing four stages.

1. Planning for future job performance.

2. Collection and processing of data.

3. Identification of deviations from plan and fact.

4. Making decisions and developing actions.

To reduce the volume of analyzed information, its generalization (aggregation) is used. Summarized data is presented in the form of reports:

1. Summing, where the results for groups of data are given.

2. Comparative, where homogeneous data are presented, but from different sources.

3. Emergency, where abnormal indicators are given.

Control technology diagram - Fig. 3.3.

		Information from the data processing system

EIT expert systems

Expert systems transform the experience of experts in some field of knowledge into the form of heuristic (experienced) rules.

A rule consists of two parts: a condition and an action, and is written in the following form: “If Condition then Action.”

The difference from decision-making technology is as follows:

1. Decision-making technology relies on user knowledge. An expert system relies on knowledge that may not be known to the user.
2. The expert system can explain its decisions.
3. Using a new type of information - knowledge.

The main components of expert systems are:

· Knowledge base

· Interpreter

System creation module

The knowledge base contains facts of the surrounding world and the logical connection of facts in the form of rules.

The interpreter processes knowledge, rules and commands.

The system creation module is used to build a hierarchy of rules.

Office automation

Office automation components:

1. Computer facilities: text and spreadsheet processors, e-mail, electronic conference.
2. Non-computer tools: photocopier, fax.

Office automation does not replace the existing management and office work system, but complements and accelerates it.

Operating principle

According to the principle of operation, computers are divided into three classes:

1. Digital (DVM)
2. Analog (AVM)
3. Hybrid (HVM)

The division criterion is the form of information presentation. In analog form, the value of the characteristic over time is represented by the magnitude of the electrical voltage U (Fig. 4.1.a). In digital form, the value of the characteristic is encoded by a sequence of pulses at the instants of the clock frequency. (Fig. 4.1.b).

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AVMs are characterized by high speed and low price, unstable operation and low accuracy. When the voltage changes, the value of the characteristic in the AVM will change.

In a digital computer, the voltage drop has little effect on the characteristic code.

The foundations for the construction of digital computers were laid in 1946 by von Neumann.

Von Neumann principles:

1. All information is presented in binary form.
2. The program is stored in the computer's memory and can be written there.
3. programs can be processed just like numbers.
4. Hierarchical organization of memory.
5. An arithmetic device is constructed based on an addition circuit.
6. Parallel processing of several bits of binary information.
7. A hierarchical system of machine actions from basic commands to compound procedures.

Currently, AVMs are almost never used.

The digital form of information storage is now used in digital cameras, televisions and video cameras.

The digital principle is also called pulse, and the analog principle is called continuous.

Stages of creation

The stages of creating a computer are associated with a change in the element base, which in turn was accompanied by a decrease in its size, and as a consequence - an increase in performance and a decrease in price.

According to the stages of creation, computers are divided into six generations:

1. 50s of XX century. Electronic vacuum tubes.
2. 60s. Semiconductor transistors.
3. 70s. Semiconductor integrated circuits (1000 transistors per circuit)
4. 80s. Large integrated circuits (1,000,000 transistors per circuit)
5. 90s. Multiprocessor computers that process multiple streams of information in parallel.
6. Optoelectronic computers. (do not exist yet, but are being developed)

Currently used and.

Purpose

According to their purpose, computers are divided into three groups:

1. Universal.
2. Problem-oriented.
3. Specialized.

Designed to solve a wide range of problems: economic, engineering, mathematical.

Solve problems related to the management of technical objects (assembly lines, cars, rockets, airplanes, numerically controlled machines)

Solve strictly defined problems (calculators, notebooks)

Functionality

According to their functionality, computers are divided into:

1. Extra large.
2. Large
3. Small
4. Mini computer
5. Ultra-small (Micro computer)

The functionality of the computer is determined by the following technical characteristics:

1. Performance measured in millions of operations per second (MIPS).
2. Bit size of processed numbers.
3. Main memory capacity and speed (Mb/sec.)
4. Capacity and speed of access to external storage devices.
5. Throughput of computer nodes and interface devices.

A supercomputer has a large memory and is characterized by a large number of parallel-operating processors (up to 100 pieces); they are used to control large distributed computer networks and for complex scientific calculations.

Mainframe computers historically came first. Their elemental base has gone from vacuum tubes to large integrated circuits. Mainframe computers are used to solve scientific and technical problems, to work with large databases, and to manage computer networks.

In the seventies of the 20th century, minicomputers appeared.

Advantages of a mini-computer: modular architecture, which made it possible to easily increase the power of the computer and connect additional devices; high performance/price ratio; increased calculation accuracy.

The main areas of application of computers:

1. technological process management.
2. Automated design.
3. Modeling of objects.
4. Scientific calculations.

Currently, minicomputers are not used. Their advantages and scope of application were transferred to microcomputers.

A microcomputer is a computer based on a microprocessor. There are two directions for using microcomputers:

1. Management of technical objects and processes.
2. Personal computers.

Personal computers

A personal computer (PC) is a microprocessor-based computer that provides all its computing resources for single use.

History of PC creation

In 1969 The Japanese company ordered 12 logic circuits from Intel. Intel engineers created one instead of 12 circuits. This scheme solved all 12 problems, moreover, it included a program for changing its functions. Thus, this circuit could, depending on the program, perform an unlimited number of functions. This circuit was called a microprocessor.

A processor is a device that is capable of receiving and executing a program.

An ALTAIR kit was created based on an Intel microprocessor; it was equipped with connectors to which external devices were to be connected.

The PC was first created in 1976. two students at Harvard University.

In 1981 IBM has finally entered the personal computer market.

The development group was allowed to use the developments of other companies.

The principle of open architecture was adopted, which consisted in adopting standards for the rules for receiving and transmitting information, as well as standards for electrical connectors, and entrusting the development of external devices to other companies.

PC Features

The PC was conceived as a universal and generally accessible device. Therefore, the PC has the following features:

small size

· low price (100 – 10000)

· high reliability (5000 hours of continuous operation)

individual interaction with a computer without intermediaries

software compatibility with millions of other personal computers

Flexibility of the architecture, allowing you to create a configuration to suit your requirements

Possibility of operation without special environmental requirements

· ability to join computer networks.

In addition to the IBM PC family, there is the DEC family, the representatives of which are Macintaw PCs. Based on their design features, PCs are divided into stationary (desktop) and portable. Portable ones are divided into:

portable (Nomadic)

· knee (Laptop)

Notebooks

· handheld (Palmtop)

· notebooks (Organizer)

PC architecture

Let's give an idea of ​​the structure and functions of PC hardware

PC structure

For quite a long time, when creating computers to control devices, the “star” principle was used, in which all devices were connected to a control device (U.U.) and U.U. coordinated their work.

To create a PC, the principle of a “common bus” was used, in which all devices, including the control device, were connected to one device - a common bus.

		Device 1		Device 2
				NGMD
	generator		Main memory		HDD adapter		Adapter NGMD, timer

Printer

HDD – hard magnetic disk drive; HDD; Winchester.

An adapter is a device that converts signals from another device into system bus signals and vice versa.

NGMD – floppy disk drive, floppy drive.

Timer (clock)

Microprocessor

The microprocessor is the central device of the PC designed to control all other devices. The microprocessor includes:

• control device (U.U.)
• arithmetic logic unit (ALU)
• microprocessor memory
• coprocessor
• interface system

The control device (C.U.) generates and supplies control signals to all computer blocks and other parts of the microprocessor at the right times.

The ALU performs all arithmetic and logical operations on integers and symbols.

Microprocessor memory is used for short-term storage of information when executing one or more machine instructions. The speed of access to it is tens of times higher than to the main memory (cache memory [“cache” - from French - treasure, cache]).

The coprocessor performs arithmetic operations on floating point numbers.

The interface system implements pairing with other devices. It includes:

• interface of microprocessor parts
• buffer storage device (registers)
• I/O port control circuits
• system bus control circuits

The coordination of the operation of the microprocessor parts and the operating speed are set by the clock pulse generator. Generators have now been created that produce 3.5 billion pulses per second.

System bus

The system (common) bus includes:

• data bus transmitting information content
• address bus carrying addresses of main memory and ports
• command bus transmitting control signals
• power bus

The system bus is controlled by a microprocessor and a bus control circuit.

Most external devices are connected to the system bus using their own control circuits - adapters, controllers. It is important to note that the address and command data bits are transmitted across the bus in parallel over multiple wires at 8, 16, 32, 64 bits per clock cycle. This increases the transfer speed.

Bus width is the number of parallel, simultaneously transmitted signals in one clock cycle.

Main memory

The main memory is used to store and exchange information between devices.

Main memory consists of read only memory (ROM) and random access memory (RAM).

ROM is used to store permanent information. Information in ROM is saved when the computer is turned off. Changing information in ROM is very difficult. Has a small volume.

RAM is designed to store information that changes while the computer is running. Information in RAM disappears when the computer is turned off. Compared to ROM, it has a large volume.

Keyboard

There are 3 types of keyboards available for PCs: 84-key, 101 and 104-key.

The keyboard contains a keyboard processor; when you press a key, the processor determines the coordinates of the key and generates a code. The processor is able to detect the duration of a press and the simultaneous pressing of several keys.

Video system

Consists of a display (monitor) and a video adapter (graphics card, video card).

To display information, the raster principle is used, i.e. the image is formed from horizontal and vertical rows of dots. In a cathode ray tube display, three electron beams pass through three sets of dots on the screen that glow red, green, and blue (RGB). The brightness of the glow depends on the power of the beam. A mixture of three colors of different intensities gives a palette of colors. For example, three beams of equal power produce shades of gray. The rays pass the screen 70 or more times per second (regeneration frequency).

In a liquid crystal display (LSD), at each point of the screen there are three windows responsible for RGB colors. Conductors are connected to the windows; when voltage is applied, the windows either glow (active matrix) or lose transparency. The resolution of a video system characterizes the degree of detail of the image on the screen.

The first characteristic of resolution is the number of vertical and horizontal rows of dots. For this specification there is a standard range: 640 X 480, 800 X 600, 1024 X 768, 1152 X 864, 1280 X 720, 1280 X 768, 1280 X 960, 1280 X 1024.

The ratio of width to height is 4 X 3.

The second characteristic is the degree of color gradation in each ellipsis: from 2 to 16 million colors.

The maximum resolution depends on both the display and the video adapter.

The video adapter contains video memory. The amount of video memory limits the resolution. For example, to store a picture (800 X 600 pixels) with 256 colors, 480 KB of video memory is required.

The function of the video adapter is to receive information, record it in video memory and regularly send the contents of video memory to the display. A separate problem is the display of movies: it requires a large amount of data (480 KB per frame) and fast processing (24 frames per second). To process movies, file compression is used and there are 2 algorithms:

1. JPEG (each frame is stored, with insufficient processing the image quality is improved)
2. MPEG (differences between frames are stored)

Printers

Designed for displaying information on paper.

3 types of printers: matrix, inkjet, laser.

In a dot matrix, a vertical row of metal rods moves and strikes the paper, imprinting rows of dots through a ribbon of ink.

Inkjet works the same way as matrix, but instead of rods, paint is sprayed through holes.

Printing on a laser printer consists of 4 stages. First, an image is applied to the drum with a laser beam, then paint adheres to the places where the beam passes. When the drum is rolled, the paint is transferred to the paper. Finally, the paint is cured by heating.

The printing process using a dot matrix printer has a low cost.

Inkjet printers themselves are cheap.

Laser printing is the highest quality.

Dot matrix printers are very noisy, inkjet printing is quite expensive, and laser printers are expensive.

Principles for choosing a PC

You need to choose a PC based on the following personal characteristics.

1. Performance. It is measured in the following units:

· MIPS – million operations per second with integers.

· MFLOPS – million operations per second with floating point.

Performance is mainly determined by:

clock frequency

Parallel command execution

system bus bandwidth

1. Microprocessor capacity.
2. Minimum RAM capacity.

Due to the use of RAM, many programs access external devices. Increasing RAM speeds up your computer.

1. Hard drive capacity

The trend in software development shows an increase in the volume of programs themselves and the volume of required data.

1. Cache size

By using cache memory, the processor accesses RAM less frequently.

1. Type of display and video adapter.

To work professionally with graphics and watch movies, you need an expensive display and a video adapter with large memory.

Computer networks

Computer networks are a collection of computers and communication channels that provide each user with shared resources

Global Area Networks (GANs)

Global networks cover a space of hundreds and thousands of km. The basic cell of a global network is an individual computer or local network.

Global Internet

In the history of the development of human society, significant changes in the field of information, which can be called revolutions, have occurred many times.

The first information revolution is associated with the advent of writing. Writing gave people the opportunity to accumulate and disseminate knowledge. The second information revolution (mid-16th century) was associated with printing. The opportunity has arisen to make information widely accessible, and not just store it. Literacy has become a phenomenon that has embraced the broad masses of the people. There was an acceleration in the growth of science and technology, leading to the Industrial Revolution. Books crossed national boundaries, which led to the beginning of the creation of a universal civilization. The third information revolution (late 19th century) was caused by great progress in communications. The telegraph, telephone, and radio made it possible to quickly transmit information over long distances. The fourth information revolution (70s of the XX century) is associated with the emergence of microprocessors and personal computers. Computer telecommunications soon emerged, greatly changing information storage and retrieval systems. The fourth information revolution has made significant changes in the development of society; a new term “information society” has appeared.

The information society is a society in which the majority of workers are engaged in the production, storage, processing and sale of information, especially its highest form - knowledge. Information becomes a subject of general consumption. The information society provides any subject with access to any source of information. This is guaranteed by technical capabilities by law. New criteria for assessing the level of development of society are emerging - the number of computers, the number of Internet connections, the number of mobile and landline phones, etc.

Distinctive features:

• increasing the role of information, knowledge and information technologies in the life of society;
• an increase in the number of people employed in information technology, communications and the production of information products and services, an increase in their share in the gross domestic product;
• the growing informatization of society using telephony, radio, television, the Internet, as well as traditional and electronic media;
• creation of a global information space that ensures: (a) effective information interaction between people, (b) their access to global information resources and (c) satisfaction of their needs for information products and services;
• development of electronic democracy, information economy, electronic state, electronic government, digital markets, electronic social and economic networks;

The term “information society” owes its name to the professor of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Yu. Hayashi, whose term was used in the works of F. Machlup (1962) and T. Umesao (1963), which appeared almost simultaneously in Japan and the USA.

In the 80-90s, philosophers and sociologists developed the theory of the information society. This work combined the efforts of such famous philosophers as Yoshita Masuda, Zbigniew Brzezinski, J. Nasbitt, M. Porat, T. Stoner, R. Karz and others.

The telecommunications revolution begins in the mid-70s and merges with the computer revolution. The computer revolution begins much earlier and proceeds in several stages.

The first stage takes place from 1930 to 1970, which is called the “zero cycle.” It begins with the creation of the first computers in which vacuum tubes replaced mechanical parts.

The second stage of the computer revolution begins with the creation of the first personal computers using integrated circuits and their mass production.

The telecommunications revolution is associated with the advent of fiber optic technologies and satellite technologies.

The merging of telecommunications and computer technologies has created many new products and services in the market. The information and telecommunications industry has today become a key sector of the economy of developed countries. They consider it necessary to import consumer goods, but export products of the information industry, and earn national wealth from their sale.

Information technologies are much more expensive than consumer goods, which provides developed countries with a high standard of living. And leadership in information technology gives them the opportunity to continue to lay claim to political leadership in the world.

Thanks to the merger of the computer and telecommunication revolutions, information networks of enormous scale, including global ones, began to be created. Through these networks it is possible to transmit, find and process the necessary information much faster.

Information resources mean information recorded on a tangible medium and stored in information systems (libraries, archives, funds, data banks, etc.). An information resource can belong to one person or a group of people, an organization, a city, a region, a country, or the world. An information resource is a product of the activities of the most qualified part of society.

There is one difference between information and other resources: every resource disappears after use, but an information resource does not, it can be used many times, it can be copied without restrictions. Moreover, the information resource tends to increase, since the use of information is rarely completely passive; more often, additional information appears.

Information resources are divided into state and non-state. According to access categories, information is divided into open and limited access. Information with limited access is divided, in turn, into information constituting a state secret and simply confidential.

Stages of development of technical means and information resources. We know from the history of mankind that some scientific inventions greatly influenced its course and the development of civilization. These include the invention of the wheel, the steam engine, the discovery of electricity, the mastery of atomic energy, etc. The processes of sharp changes in the nature of production, which lead to important scientific discoveries, are usually called the scientific and technological revolution (STR).

The emergence of computer technology in the second half of the 20th century became the most important factor in the scientific and technological revolution.

First stage begins with the creation of the first electronic computer ENIAC (computer) in 1945. For about 30 years, computers were used by a small number of people, mostly in scientific and industrial fields.

Second phase begins in the mid-70s and is associated with the emergence and widespread distribution of personal computers (PCs). PCs have become widely used not only in science and production, but also in the general education system, the service sector, and everyday life. PCs entered the house as one of the types of household appliances along with televisions and tape recorders.

Third stage associated with the emergence of the global computer network Internet. With the advent of the Internet, a PC that fits on a desk has become a window into a vast world of information. Such concepts as “global information space” and “cyberspace” appeared. It is the advent of the Internet that makes it possible to say that the stage of “information-oriented society” is beginning in the history of civilization.

With the spread of the PC, the concept of computer literacy arises. Computer literacy is the necessary level of knowledge and skills of a person that allows him to use computers for public and personal purposes.

At the first stage Computer literacy came down to the ability to create programs. Programming was studied mainly in higher educational institutions, and was taught by scientists, engineers, and professional programmers.

At the second stage The general level of computer literacy began to be understood as the ability to work on a PC with application programs and perform a minimum of actions in the operating system environment. Computer literacy at this level is becoming a mass phenomenon thanks to training at school, in numerous courses, and independently.

At the third, modern stage, an important element of computer literacy is the ability to use the Internet and its resources.

One of the stages of the transition to the information society is the computerization of society, where all attention is given to the development and universal introduction of computers that ensure prompt receipt of the results of information processing and its accumulation.

The main instrument of computerization is the computer (or computer). Humanity has come a long way before reaching the modern state of computer technology.

The main stages in the development of computer technology are:

I. The manual period of automation of calculations began at the dawn of human civilization. It was based on the use of fingers and toes. Counting with the help of grouping and rearranging objects was the predecessor of counting on the abacus, the most developed counting device of antiquity. An analogue of the abacus in Rus' is the abacus that has survived to this day. Using an abacus involves performing calculations by digits, i.e. the presence of some positional number system.

At the beginning of the 17th century, the Scottish mathematician J. Napier introduced logarithms, which had a revolutionary impact on counting. The slide rule he invented served engineers for more than 360 years. It is undoubtedly the crowning achievement of the manual computing tools of the automation era.

II. The development of mechanics in the 17th century became a prerequisite for the creation of computing devices and instruments using the mechanical method of calculation. Here are the most significant results achieved along this path. 1623 - German scientist W. Schickard describes and implements in a single copy a mechanical calculating machine designed to perform four arithmetic operations on six-digit numbers. 1642 - B. Pascal built an eight-bit working model of a adding machine. 1673 - German mathematician Leibniz creates the first adding machine that allows you to perform all four arithmetic operations. Arithmometers were used for practical calculations until the sixties of the 20th century.

The English mathematician Charles Babbage (1792-1871) put forward the idea of ​​​​creating a program-controlled calculating machine with an arithmetic device, control device, input and printing. Babbage's second project was an analytical engine that used the principle of program control and was intended to calculate any algorithm. The analytical engine consisted of the following four main parts: storage - memory; mill - arithmetic device; control device; input/output devices. Lady Ada Lovelace worked simultaneously with the English scientist. She developed the first programs for the machine, laid down many ideas and introduced a number of concepts and terms that have survived to this day.

III. The electromechanical stage of development of VT was the shortest and covers about 60 years- from the first tabulator by G. Hollerith to the first computer "ENIAC". 1887 - creation by G. Hollerith in the USA of the first counting and analytical complex, consisting of a manual punch, a sorting machine and a tabulator. One of its most famous applications is the processing of census results population in several countries, including Russia. Subsequently, Hollerith's company became one of four companies that laid the foundation for the famous IBM corporation. Beginning - 30s of the 20th century - the development of computer-analytical complexes, on the basis of which computer centers were created. At the same time, analog machines are developing. 1930 - W. Bush develops a differential analyzer, which was later used for military purposes. 1937 - J. Atanasov, K. Berry create the ABC electronic machine. 1944 - G. Aiken develops and creates controlled computer MARK-1. Subsequently, several more models were implemented. 1957 - the last largest project of relay computing technology - RVM-I was created in the USSR, which was operated until 1965.

IV. The electronic stage, the beginning of which is associated with the creation in the USA at the end of 1945 of the ENIAC electronic computer. In the history of computer development, it is customary to distinguish several generations, each of which has its own distinctive features and unique characteristics. The main difference between machines of different generations is the element base, logical architecture and software; in addition, they differ in speed, RAM, methods of input and output of information, etc. This information is summarized in the table below.