Though it may not be apparent from surface value, cybernetics is responsible for giving us the internet, microwaves, lasers, email, computers, and DVDs to name a few. Cybernetics became popular based on the discoveries of Norbert Wiener, a Mathematics professor at MIT in the early 1900s (www.isss.org/lumwiener.htm). Wiener was the first person to actually calculate and record what is now known today as cybernetics. His discoveries created a lot of controversy in the scientific world and eventually spread to many sciences such as mathematics, biology, neurophysiology, anthropology, and psychology.
Cybernetics, as later defined, is actually a clarification, a distinction, between humans and machines and implies that all major machines can be related, ordered, and understood. “Cybernetics deals with all forms of behavior in so far as they are regular, or determinate, or reproducible” (Ross Ashby). This means that the natural reality is irrelevant. For example, the design and color of a laptop has little to do with the mechanical networks inside.
Today, cybernetics is most commonly paired with AI, or Artificial Intelligence. “AI is predicated on the presumption that knowledge is a commodity that can be stored inside of a machine, and that the application of such stored knowledge to the real world constitutes intelligence” (www.pangaro.com). For example, if you program your alarm clock to go off at 7AM, then your alarm clock technically has a form of stored intelligence, or Artificial Intelligence. See the diagram below for further comparison of the relationship between AI and cybernetics. When you look at cybernetics from an educational perspective, it is basically just the study of human control functions and how machines can be programmed to replace them.
This diagram really helps me to grasp the idea of cybernetics. When you think about all those movies about artificial intelligence, and how we think about the "future" generations, everything going digital and electronic, the idea of cybernetics may seem more realistic than ever. Then again, these movies are sort of made to make us think about the potential of the future though we consider them science fiction.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting. The unsuspecting example of the alarm clock as having artificial intelligence is a prime indication of this movement into a truly digital age. If you think about it, 50 years ago the thought of an automated, digital alarm clock was unfathomable. Yet today it's nearly second nature to have one and rely on something completely digital and autonomous such as an alarm clock. Could the "future," as many sci-fi films create, just be a move in a more cybernetic, digitally autonomous society?
ReplyDeleteThis is a great start Ben, and I appreciate your feedback on the diagram, Sarah. I would add that Wiener's basic example of a cybernetic device is the thermostat.
ReplyDeleteBen, you what you say about cybernetics is good, but I'm not sure you put get across a definition of the term, or the essential idea behind it, as the science of control.
I also wanted to add that when you list a URL, as you did with www.isss.org/lumwiener.htm, you should add the link. You should be able to go back and edit the post to do that.
ReplyDeleteI don't think i've looked at cybernetics in this sense. When I think cybernetics for some reason the picture of Terminator 2 comes to light. In its most simplistic sense, it's not so much solely machines being made to make things easier, but to actually replace a human action with its mechanical equivalent. But, regarding Professor Strate's comment, if it is the science of control, where in cybernetics is it possible to lose control?
ReplyDeleteI find this post very informative. The depth you go in explains cybernetics very well. The diagram was very helpful to better understand the idea too.
ReplyDelete"To actually replace a human action with its mechanical equivalent." Luke's comment brings to mind the movie iRobot with Will Smith, were the Robots' artificial intelligence grows exponentially. The main robot(system) comes to the conclusion that humans had become inefficient and that Robots should take control of society. The idea that high levels of artificial intelligence may come to existence is something that can be held in awe, but should also be taken with certain caution. Therefore, is a cybernetic world really a better world and should our society really be moving towards a machine dependent society?
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