Norbert Weiner & Cybernetics LCC 2700: Intro to Computational Media Fall 2005 Ian Bogost

Norbert Weiner American mathematician, Entered Tufts University at age 11. Completed studies at 14 and attended Harvard and Cornell. Received a Ph.D. from Harvard at age 18. Worked on Ballistics during WWII, and specifically synchronized control of weaponry systems (gunnery management. This led to insights in communications and eventually led to his interest in Cybernetics. The classic “absentminded professor”

Cybernetics 1948 book Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and machine From the Greek kybernêtês: steersman, rudder, governor Logic, Neurology, and Electronic Networks Not related to Cyborgs…

Cybernetics The relations between parts of a system Information, Feedback, Control The intrinsic relationship between the observer and the system The limits of what we know

Information, Control, Feedback Information as any stimulus, data, or content that can be “read” by an agent. Information is often described as a representational flow Control: the agent acting upon another part of the system Feedback: the thing controlled provides a relation to the controller

Feedback Circular relations that regulate a system Leads to emergent self-organization Goals regulated by positive or negative feedback Systems map an environment back onto themselves Complex, adaptive, self-regulating systems

Positive Feedback Produces cumulative effects Divergence; a trend toward zero or toward infinity The snowball effect Chain reactions (dominoes, nuclear weapons), population, compound interest, cancer

Negative Feedback Oscillation around an ideal Self-determination (the ecosystem, the cell) Designed determination (servomechanisms Goal seeking behavior (thermostats, toilet tanks, non-Norman Doors)

Don Norman again Visibility –Actions should be immediately obvious Feedback –Results should be immediately obvious Designing for Error –Progress toward desired results should be oriented toward human expectations without resorting to failure In cybernetic terms: negative feedback equilibria from visual, audible, or tactile information flows –Approximations toward desired goals –Decision Networks

Weiner: Liberal Humanist? Liberal humanist values –The rational self –Autonomy and freedom –Agency –Enlightened self-interest “Men, Machines, and the World About” –Address to physicians in 1954 –The Automatic Factory –Computers can take over many thinking processes –Humans must not let computers become their masters

The Automatic Factory “Ultra-Rapid Computing Machine” Functions “like a brain” “Artificial sense organs” would regulate the environment, like so many thermostats Hardware replaces the sense organs of the blue-collar worker Computer calculations replace the judgments of the white-collar worker The unscrupulous get rich at the cost of society Fiction or reality?

Cybernetics vs. Humanism War Machine –Self-correcting radar –Automated anti-aircraft fire –Torpedoes, guided missiles Systems left to work on their own? –Adam Smith, The Invisible Hand –The free market economy –Healthcare Active Participation in a Community Still not much of a solution: Men must not let machines take over… –“ Gentlemen, when we get into trouble with the machine, we cannot talk the machine back into the bottle”