It is not an algorithm like Conway's, but human players who control in real time the graphic elements of a global matrix, based on one unit per person.
Therefore, no location in the network plays a particular role and according to the rules of the Poietic Generator, an "all-all" interaction may take place without the intervention of any kind of control center.
The subjects of the experiments were diverse: network protocols, the process of emergence of forms, human-machine interfaces, collective intelligence,[20] group behavior,[21] etc.
Note that the Poietic Generator was born at the time of Minitel, before the invention of the Web (1994), and implemented from 1995 onwards on experimental Multicast networks foreshadowing IPv6.
[48] In other respects, many commercial games have partially taken up the principle of the Poetic Generator (the act of dropping one or more 2D or 3D pixels into a more or less synchronous collective space), notably The Million Dollar Homepage (2005), Minecraft (2009), Place (Reddit) (2017), etc.
These type of devices support processes of pure synchronous human communication, free from algorithmic control or introduction of external data.
According to Olivier Auber, there would be in the Poietic Generator, intrusion of eigenfrequencies, similar to those existing in other autopoietic systems (cell, cerebral cortex, etc.).
But unlike these systems, often opaque about their prerequisites, their rules and infrastructure, the Poietic Generator is perfectly transparent: "everything is known or knowable",[6] in particular the fact that it operates either centrally or without any center.
The hypothesis of Olivier Auber is that these perspectives are exercised within the framework of "real" systems, opaque and complex as mentioned above, and that they shape the imagination and judgment, that is to say the doxa of those who are enrolled in it.
[58] For Olivier Auber, the Poietic Generator, as a model and experience available to all, could contribute to "a certain conceptual knowledge (dianoia) of how the doxa is formed and exercised on us, especially through technology".
At a time when technical objects are close to the body and are preparing to invade it, the Poietic Generator could help us by providing "a set of conceptual tools for the new "perspecteurs" (Abraham Bosse) that we could all become" in order, he says, to "rethink the imagination of the technology in full light".
[59][60] Attempts like this are crucial to emancipate the technology from the status a mere instrument for defined purposes, and to recognize the role that it should have as a creator of culture and practices.
[61]Since the 1990s, many scientists in all disciplines, mentioned the Poietic Generator as a model which may help to rethink the cultural, even anthropological changing, latent in networks, and especially emphasized the urgency of a "redefinition of the notion of authorship".
[62] Some of these researchers[63] brought in a personal support to attempts to practice large-scale experiments using channels such as broadcast television stations, museums, public places, etc.