Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI

Possible Minds: 25 Ways of Looking at AI

Chapter 1 - "Wrong, but More Relevant Than Ever" - on Slate
Seth Lloyd [2.28.19]

The Human Use of Human Beings, Norbert Wiener’s 1950 popularization of his highly influential book Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948)investigates the interplay between human beings and machines in a world in which machines are becoming ever more computationally capable and powerful. It is a remarkably prescient book, and remarkably wrong. Written at the height of the Cold War, it contains a chilling reminder of the dangers of totalitarian organizations and societies, and of the danger to democracy when it tries to combat totalitarianism with totalitarianism’s own weapons.