Cybernetics, Automata Studies, and the Dartmouth Conference on Artificial Intelligence

Ronald R. Kline

Cornell University

The Cybernetics Moment

Or Why We Call Our Age the Information Age

RONALD R. KLINE

AN INTRODUCTION TO CYBERNETICS

by

W. ROSS ASHBY

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M.A., M.D.(Cantab.), D.P.M.

Director of Research

Barnwood House, Gloucester

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONDON

CHAPMAN & HALL LTD

37 ESSEX STREET WC2

1957

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Cybernetics and Management

Stafford Beer

The English Universities Press

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1959

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作者：胡权 工业4.0研究院院长兼首席经济学家 来源：本文发布在2016年9月号《清华管理评论》

上个世纪50年代，控制论创始人诺伯特·维纳（Norbert Wiener）对自动化技术给人类社会带来的影响颇为忧虑，专门撰写了《人有人的用处：控制论与社会》（The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society）一书，在用通俗的语言介绍控制论的同时，也预测控制论应用将带来自动化发展趋势，同时，维纳还阐释了人类社会所面临的自动化挑战。

以自动化为核心特征的人类工业化进程，大大改变了人类社会的形态，其影响的范围甚至于包含了政治、经济和哲学等领域。笔者相信，随着人工智能为基础的智能化进程的开始，人类社会将很快进入智能时代，这将为人类社会发展提出新的自动化挑战，那就是人与机器（人）如何共处？我们现在需要深入思考，找到相关的解决办法，才可能发挥技术的正面价值，避免负面影响带来的不良后果。

AN INTRODUCTION TO CYBERNETICS

by

W. ROSS ASHBY

更多

M.A., M.D.(Cantab.), D.P.M.

Director of Research

Barnwood House, Gloucester

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONDON

CHAPMAN & HALL LTD 37 ESSEX STREET WC2

1957

收起

"CYBERNETICS," in its authoritative and final Second Edition, and available in a modern and highly legible presentation - not a "facsimile edition" (photocopy) of the printing as are cheap recreations. Instead, the Quid Pro Books edition allows the reader to experience the best version of the work in a contemporary but affordable printing, not just as a facsimile or reprint. [NOTE: Only the Quid Pro edition offers these features, even if this description erroneously appears under other press's versions or older, "used" copies of the work.] A quality, affordable ebook version of this classic work is also available from Quid Pro Books.

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"CYBERNETICS" is on virtually everyone's short list of the most important and influential nonfiction books of the last century. First published by MIT mathematics professor Norbert Wiener in 1948, and later in its Second Edition in 1961, this groundbreaking account of systems, thought processes, AI, and the use of "feedback" foreshadowed intelligent and replicating machines, complex organizational organisms, and the physiology and failure of the human nervous system. Its 1961 Second Edition is the same version republished in many printed paperback editions since (such as the "1965 printing" by MIT Press), and represents the culmination of the author's work on this project.

No small wonder this has been widely read by scientists and lay readers alike, to understand the origins and future of computers, wider communication pathways, the use of feedback to refine actions and thought processes, and the logic and math behind non-linear systems. Educated readers know the term "cybernetics"; this book coined the term and created an entire field of interdisciplinary study that resonates today, and led to the "cyber"-everything that we know.

Norbert Wiener, known as the "Father of Cybernetics," has influenced such fields of study as game theory, system theory, sociology, psychology and neuroscience, modern philosophy, organizational theory, and even architecture.

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Only a few books stand as landmarks in social and scientific upheaval. Norbert Wiener's classic is one in that small company. Founder of the science of cybernetics—the study of the relationship between computers and the human nervous system—Wiener was widely misunderstood as one who advocated the automation of human life. As this book reveals, his vision was much more complex and interesting. He hoped that machines would release people from relentless and repetitive drudgery in order to achieve more creative pursuits. At the same time he realized the danger of dehumanizing and displacement. His book examines the implications of cybernetics for education, law, language, science, technology, as he anticipates the enormous impact—in effect, a third industrial revolution—that the computer has had on our lives.