The Hidden Fragility of Complex Systems -- Consequences of Change, Changing Consequences

TL;DR

This paper discusses how increasing complexity in socio-technical systems leads to hidden fragility, making understanding and predicting their behavior a significant challenge due to unintended consequences.

Contribution

It highlights the inevitability of hidden fragility in complex systems and emphasizes the importance of understanding social dynamics in their construction.

Findings

Complex systems exhibit hidden fragility due to their structural complexity.

Unintended consequences arise from short-term survival strategies.

Understanding social dynamics is crucial for predicting system behavior.

Abstract

Short-term survival and an exuberant plunge into building our future are generating a new kind of unintended consequence -- hidden fragility. This is a direct effect of the sophistication and structural complexity of the socio-technical systems humans create. It is inevitable. And so the challenge is, How much can we understand and predict about these systems and about the social dynamics that lead to their construction?