Cybernetics

While Norbert Wiener created various theories, his most famous one was about cybernetics. It was focused on understanding control and communications with animals, people, and machines—showing the importance of feedback loops.

In 1948, Wiener published Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Even though it was a scholarly work—filled with complex equations—the book still became a bestseller, hitting the New York Times list.

It was definitely wide ranging. Some of the topics included Newtonian mechanics, meteorology, statistics, astronomy, and thermodynamics. This book would anticipate the development of chaos theory, digital communications, and even computer memory.

But the book would also be influential for AI. Like McCulloch and Pitts, Wiener compared the human brain to the computer. Furthermore, he speculated that a computer would be able to play chess and eventually beat grand masters. The main reason is that he believed that a machine could learn as it played games. He even thought that computers would be able to replicate themselves.

But Cybernetics was not utopian either. Wiener was also prescient in understanding the downsides of computers, such as the potential for dehumanization. He even thought that machines would make people unnecessary.

It was definitely a mixed message. But Wiener’s ideas were powerful and spurred the development of AI.