Latency

Conventionally: The delay or lapse between the initiation of an action and its outcome; between a stimulus and its effects. Hesitations in human communication. The temporal interval inherent in systems and processes.

But! Latency isn’t just about temporal delay. It also encompasses hidden potential, dormancy, and emergent properties across various systems – technological, social, and cognitive. Can also be applied to how ideas, behaviours, and social practices propagate through society. This perspective could offer insights into the dynamics of social change and diffusion of innovations.

In some cases, latency might contribute to system stability and resilience by preventing immediate, potentially destabilising reactions to stimuli? The inertia of technological momentum?

Latency challenges us to reconsider the relationship between abstract systems and physical reality. In machine learning, latent space refers to an abstract, multi-dimensional space representing compressed data representations. This concept relates to the “hidden potential” aspect of latency.

The ability to control or manipulate latency in systems could be seen as a form of power. At the same time, in some contexts, latency might level the playing field by giving more time for reflection and response, benefiting those who process information more slowly (think: OODA loops?).

• [?] How do individual cognitive processes interact with broader social and technological latencies?
• [?] How does latency contribute to both the preservation of existing knowledge/culture and the emergence of new forms?
• [?] Is minimising latency always desirable, or can intentional latency create space for engagement and understanding?
• [&] Think, for example, about delay line memory.
• [&] See also: reverse salients, hauntology?

Tags: time

Backlinks

: Edge computing : Latent Intimacies : Reverse salients : Time-sharing