The title of Wiener’s book, already says a great deal about his view on implementing technology: Human Use of Human Beings – Cybernetics and Society. Although the book is about cybernetics – effectively using messages to control – and how a society functions with and without machines to control. Unlike what society might expect from the author of such a book, Wiener seems to take a rather uncapitalistic and un faschist (which is hard to do at the same time) stance on the use of machines. “I wish to devote this book to a protest against inhuman use of human beings… those who suffer from a power complex find the mechanization of man a simple way to realize their ambitions” (16). Wiener implies that humans were special in their capacity for complex actions in which the used sensory organs as well as memory to decide and perform actions where they relied on feedback from performed actions. However, machines begin to have more and more the capacity to do mimic and parallel human behavior. Yet, Wiener does not see this as substantial grounds to replace one with the other despite increased efficiency (wham to the capitalists) nor the need for men of ambition to have “all orders come form above and not reurn” (15) (wham to the fascist). It was extremely interesting to hear a scholarly argument, and moreover such a technical argument, against using machines or using humans like machines since most of arguments of the kind are usually made on moral or sympathetical justification.
A concern for both Wiener and Shannon/Weaver seemed to be the loss of the intended message. Both spend a considerable amount of time on the selection of a message, its transmitter, signal, receiver (coding, patterns, transmittance) and the encoding and interpretation at the end again. Because information (messages) are used to control other humans and machines, misinterpretation can be a huge deal, especially as the message becomes more complex(less regular pattern)
Gotta run! More later!
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