[delusional]

It does not ignore the word. It subverts it, and that's the point. It's the system equivalent of "death of the author", which states that omes a work is written, the authors intent loses relevance and the work must be examined on its own. The aurhors opinion or relationship to the work carries no more weight than any other persons.

That's not "true" in any demonstrable sense, but it can be a useful form of analysis. As it is with "purpose of a system"

[aidenn0]

This is not how people outside of cybernetics use POSWID. From context it does not appear to be how SlinkyOnStairs was using it either.

I think it's also trying to be too cute. The first two definitions of purpose on Wiktionary[A]:

1. The end for which something is done, is made or exists.

2. Function, role.

People (uselessly) talking about the purpose of a system are often referring to #1, while POSWID is using it to mean #2. The real point of POSWID is that only definition #2 matters. POSWID is a terrible phrase not because it is wrong, but because is is an equivocation -- I suspect that Beer intended it as a pun, but the difference between the two is if one gets the joke. POSWID gets used incorrectly because people don't get the joke.

A: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/purpose

[SlinkyOnStairs]

> From context it does not appear to be how SlinkyOnStairs was using it either.

The exact definition of "purpose" doesn't matter much here.

The particular version of the heuristic used here is that the stated purpose and the actual purpose often differ. POSIWID being the observation that the actual purpose is reflected by the outcomes of the system, because if that isn't the case the system gets changed.

Thus, the observation about AI benchmarks. AI companies have had years now to stop using unreliable benchmarks as advertising material. There's been years of piece after piece about the problems with these benchmarks. And yet the AI marketing continues as is.

[aidenn0]

> POSIWID being the observation that the actual purpose is reflected by the outcomes of the system, because if that isn't the case the system gets changed.

I fundamentally disagree with this, and it seems to differ from how other proponents of POSIWID in this thread view POSIWID.

It also seems trivially false; systems are dynamic what was the purpose of the system just before it was changed because people didn't like the outcomes?

[TeMPOraL]

I'd go further and say this is also the cybernetics equivalent of the religious teachings about humans, specifically the whole "judge by one's deeds, not by one's words" thing. So it's not like it's a novel idea.

Also worth remembering that most systems POSIWID is said about, and in fact ~all important systems affecting people, are not designed in the first place. Market forces, social, political, even organizational dynamics, are not designed top-down, they're emergent, and bottom-up wishes and intentions do not necessarily carry over to the system at large.