Norbert Wiener

" Lune des leçons de ce livre est que tout organisme maintient sa cohésion par la possession de moyens dacquisition, dusage, de rétention et de transmission de linformation. "Première traduction fran

" Lune des leçons de ce livre est que tout organisme maintient sa cohésion par la possession de moyens dacquisition, dusage, de rétention et de transmission de linformation. "Première traduction fran

Norbert Wieners celebrated autobiography, available for the first time in one volume.Norbert WienerA Life in Cybernetics combines for the first time the two volumes of Norbert Wieners celebrated autobiography. Published at the height of public enthusiasm for cyberneticswhen it was taken up by scientists, engineers, science fiction writers, artists, and musiciansEx-Prodigy (1953) and I Am a Mathematician (1956) received attention from both scholarly and mainstream publications, garnering reviews and publicity in outlets that ranged from the New York Times and New York Post to the Virginia Quarterly Review. Norbert Wiener was a mathematician with extraordinarily broad interests. The son of a Harvard professor of Slavic languages, Wiener was reading Dante and Darwin at seven, graduated from Tufts at fourteen, and received a PhD from Harvard at eighteen. He joined MITs Department of Mathematics in 1919, where he remained until his death in 1964 at sixty-nine. In Ex-Prodigy, Wiener offers an emotionally raw account of being raised as a child prodigy by an overbearing father. In I Am a Mathematician, Wiener describes his research at MIT and how he established the foundations for the multidisciplinary field of cybernetics and the theory of feedback systems. This volume makes available the essence of Wieners life and thought to a new generation of readers.

A classic and influential work that laid the theoretical foundations for information theory and a timely text for contemporary informations theorists and practitioners.With the influential book Cybernetics, first published in 1948, Norbert Wiener laid the theoretical foundations for the multidisciplinary field of cybernetics, the study of controlling the flow of information in systems with feedback loops, be they biological, mechanical, cognitive, or social. At the core of Wieners theory is the message (information), sent and responded to (feedback); the functionality of a machine, organism, or society depends on the quality of messages. Information corrupted by noise prevents homeostasis, or equilibrium. And yet Cybernetics is as philosophical as it is technical, with the first chapter devoted to Newtonian and Bergsonian time and the philosophical mixed with the technical throughout. This book brings the 1961 second edition back into print, with new forewords by Doug Hill and Sanjoy Mitter. Contemporary readers of Cybernetics will marvel at Wieners presciencehis warnings against noise, his disdain for hucksters and gadget worshipers, and his view of the mass media as the single greatest anti-homeostatic force in society. This edition of Cybernetics gives a new generation access to a classic text.

For the 75th anniversary, a new edition of The Human Use of Human Beingsthe landmark book that delves into the relationship between humans and computers, and presciently anticipates many contemporary dilemmas surrounding AI technology. With a new introduction by Brian Christian, author of the bestselling Algorithms to Live By and The Alignment Problem.In 1950, mathematician-philosopher Norbert Wiener ended this classic book on the place of machines in society with a warning: We shall never receive the right answers to our questions unless we ask the right questions.... The hour is very late, and the choice of good and evil knocks at our door.Wiener, the founder of the science of cyberneticsthe study of the relationship between computers and the human nervous systemwas widely mislabeled as an advocate for the automation of human life. As The Human Use for Human Beings reveals, his vision was much more complex and interesting, and is more relevant in todays world of AI than anyone could have anticipated.In his new introduction, Brian Christian aptly calls Wiener the progenitor of contemporary AI-safety discourse. Wiener hoped that machines would release people from relentless and repetitive drudgery to achieve more creative pursuits, yet he anticipated the danger of dehumanizing and displacement. His pioneering views on the human-machine relationship as a communicative process are only more crucial now, as we carry in our pockets AI devices that we can literally speak to. His prescient warnings illuminate our contemporary relationships with language, art, and even social media.The Human Use of Human Beings examines the implications of cybernetics for education, law, language, science, technology, as Wiener anticipates the enormous impactin effect, a third industrial revolutionthat the computer has had on our lives.Wieners prescient analysis grapples with the core principles of the information age:AI Safety and Control: Decades before modern AI, Wiener warned of the sorcerers apprentice problem, laying the groundwork for todays AI-safety discourse by questioning how to align machine decisions with human values. Information vs. Entropy: A groundbreaking look at how society, life, and technology are all temporary islands of order fighting against the universal tendency toward chaos and decay. Feedback Mechanisms: Discover how feedbackthe process of adjusting future conduct by past performanceis the fundamental mechanism of control in everything from steam engines to the human nervous system. Social Impact of Technology: A visionary forecast of how intelligent machines would reshape law, language, and culture, posing a profound choice for humanity between good and evil.

Concebido en 1954, el manuscrito de Inventar fue encontrado entre los papeles de Norbert Wiener tiempo despues de su muerte y no vio la luz en Estados Unidos hasta 1993. Leer este libro cuarenta años despues de su escritura no puede sino producir a la vez inquietud y curiosidad: la mayoria de las ideas, sugerencias y reflexiones expresadas entonces por el, no solo acerca de la ciencia, sino tambien de la politica, la sociedad y nuestro entorno natural, ¡esta todavia hoy por madurar, prosperar o resolver! a Inventar es un texto de filosofia de la invencion y de la investigacion cientifica, una critica de eventos cientificos que Wiener predice y, sobre todo, un incentivo para volver a pensar los componentes del clima social y politico que estimulan el proceso creativo. La fuerte vigencia de sus reflexiones continua siendo relevante precisamente por la perspectiva desde la que se fraguan. Inventar es un documento indispensable para pensar el futuro.

Uno de los libros que mayor influencia ha ejercido en el siglo XX, Cibernética ha sido aclamada como una obra de capital importancia (. . . ) tan sólo comparable con la de Galileo, Malthus, Rousseau o Mill. John R. Platt, The New York Times. Cibernetica ha sido considerado por veintisiete historiadores, economistas, educadores y filosofos como uno de los libros publicadosen las cuatro ultimas decadasque,mas profundamente alteraron la orientacion de nuestra sociedad (. . . ) y que, con los años, seguira produciendo el mismo impacto en el pensamiento y los actos de la gente. Saturday Review Parece imposible que cualquiera que este seriamente interesado en nuestra civilizacion no haya leido este libro. Esellibro de quienes trabajan en cualquier rama de la ciencia. (. . . ) tampoco los economistas, los politicos, los hombres de Estado y de negocios pueden permitirse ignorar la cibernetica y sus tremendas y aterradoras implicaciones. (. . . ) Es un libro escrito con maestria, lucido, directo pese a su complejidad. Cuya lectura es accesible tanto para el lego como para el mas curtido cientifico. John B. Thurston, The Saturday Review of Literature Sus intenciones e implicaciones quitan el aliento y le dejan a uno con la conviccion de que se trata de una de las mayores contribuciones al pensamiento contemporaneo. Rusell L. Ackoff, Philosophy of Science Una de la obras mas provocadoras de la historia de la ciencia. P.J. Baht. Electro-Technology Puede que sea necesario volver a el una y otra vez para apreciar plenamente su contenido. (. . . ) segun afirma en la primera edicion,este libro espara comprar, leer y volver a leer. Sigue siendo verdad. Marconi Review