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A Software Engineer’s Guide to Cybernetics
- scribu 6y agoAh, this is so handy! It explains why some Economics degrees have a course on Cybernetics.
- rmujica 6y agoFor some arcane reason, my CS degree had a course in Cybernetics and Systems Theory (which is weird because it is not taught in any other degree in my country, and it is taught by one professor that happened to study Cybernetics in the 60s in East Germany). It is possibly the one course that changed my perception about things, interactions and feedback loops, and it still piques my curiosity.
- taneq 6y agoProbably because 'Cybernetics' has a way cooler ring to it than 'Control Systems'.
- richev 6y agoThis may be why an 18-year old me chose to do a degree in Cybernetics and Control Engineering! Excited by the first word, I didn't dwell too much on the last two. Sure, there was some fun robotics, electronics and math, but also some truly baffling control theory. Thankfully there was also a small amount of Computer Science, which sent me down the programming path that I remain on today...
- sgillen 6y agoMissing from the article is any discussion of control theory. In my view cybernetics essentially morphed into modern day control theory, there are many examples of very broad ideas in cybernetics being made specific and rigorous in controls. For example the good regulator theorem became the internal model principle. I encourage anyone interested in learning more about this brand of cybernetics to pick up a control or dynamical systems textbook, researchers have definitely not been idle in this area!
- robocat 6y agoFrom article: "Over time, cybernetics’s contributions were stripped away and reclassified as something else. Early work on feedback loops in cognition became AI. Models of the format of feedback loops became information theory. Work on feedback loops around production became part of economics. Work on mathematical representations of complex systems became system dynamics. Work on feedback loops in behavior moved over to sociology and psychology. Cybernetic theory practically founded anthropology and cognitive science." Control theory is just one amongst many splinters, without any implied primacy of control theory.
- amatic 6y agoControl theory certainly predates Wiener's cybernetics. He did not invent negative feedback analysis nor design of control systems. He did fail to cite previous work, so adherents of cybernetics think he did.
- ethn 6y agoIn Cybernetics, he does credit Maxwell, Pitts, etc. He goes through the entire history of science relevant to Cybernetics for the first and second chapters. He did invent plenty of feedback analysis techniques and modern control systems before writing Cybernetics
- amatic 6y agoThere are many developments relevant for cybernetics that were not mentioned in the book Cybernetics, like discoveries of H.S. Black and other engineers in Bell labs, or early mechanical analog computers. Here is a short review of book on the history of control engineering before cybernetics: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/acs.839 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/acs.839 "[...] general reader could be forgiven for assuming that Wiener was the originator of the idea of feedback control. Significant though these war-time contributions were, they were not the whole story: as I and others have shown feedback control has had a much longer history" That text includes more references to papers and books on the history of ideas relevant for control theory and control engineering.
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- atarian 6y ago>The word cybernetics comes from the greek κυβερνήτης (kybernḗtēs) which means a pilot, governor, someone who steers. TIL that's also where Kubernetes comes from.
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- perilunar 6y agoWorth mentioning the very popular 1960 self-help book “Psycho-Cybernetics”, by Maxwell Maltz. Predates Doctor Who’s Cybermen as a mainstream use of the term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Cybernetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Cybernetics
- fizixer 6y agoCybernetics is really an old word, or one of the old words, for AI/robotics. The overarching, multidiscipline, that subsumes cybernetics, can be summarized here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Complex_systems_organizational_map.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Complex_...
- positivefeedb 6y ago> Cybernetics is really an old word, or one of the old words, for AI/robotics. Completely wrong. AI/robotics are but two of the many fields that cybernetic principles apply to, and arguably not even the most important. I suggest you look at what people like Bateson, Von Foerster and Glanville were doing, to understand first the scope and ultimately what cybernetics really is at its core.
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- lubesGordi 6y agoPrincipia Cybernetica was one of the older sites on the web that I remember. Mirrored here: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MST.html http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MST.html That's a link to the 'metasystem transition', a concept coined by Russian cybernetician Valentin Turchin (not mentioned in the article). Cybernetics sounds cool (always has), but I think it lives on nowadays as control theory. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Seems like most control theory guys are working on autonomous vehicles now.
- ilaksh 6y agoThe concept of the metasystem transition has inspired me for a long time. In almost a spiritual sense. Because it just is such a powerful event. I imagine someday brain computer interfaces or general AI could give rise to a metasystem transition. Hopefully it won't turn out like those Star Trek episodes.
- platz 6y agocybernetics links: Second-order cybernetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-order_cybernetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-order_cybernetics Systems_theory: Cybernetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory#Cybernetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory#Cybernetics what is cybernetics? https://vimeo.com/41776276 https://vimeo.com/41776276 design for a self-regenerating organization https://www.pangaro.com/ashby+design-for-self-regenerating-corporation.htm https://www.pangaro.com/ashby+design-for-self-regenerating-c... notes 358 on the role of leadership & language in regenerating organizations http://www.pangaro.com/littlegreybook-dom.pdf http://www.pangaro.com/littlegreybook-dom.pdf towards a theoretical foundation for agile development https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7302798 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7302798 2017 cybernetics conference https://livestream.com/internetsociety2/cybercon https://livestream.com/internetsociety2/cybercon 2017 cybernetics conference - proxy politics as social cybernetics https://livestream.com/internetsociety2/cybercon/videos/166218044 https://livestream.com/internetsociety2/cybercon/videos/1662... how cybernetics connects computing, counterculture, and design http://www.dubberly.com/articles/cybernetics-and-counterculture.html http://www.dubberly.com/articles/cybernetics-and-countercult... a tale of the mirror world, part 1: calculators and cybernetics https://www.filfre.net/2017/06/tales-of-the-mirror-world-part-1-calculators-and-cybernetics/ https://www.filfre.net/2017/06/tales-of-the-mirror-world-par... Niklas Luhmann: Systems Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklas_Luhmann#Systems_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklas_Luhmann#Systems_theory
- ilaksh 6y agoThis article reminded me of Ferren Alet's work at MIT. I think it's been clear that feedback loops are important for certain types of intelligence for a long time. And its exciting to see things like lots of feedback loops and modularity being emphasized more in neural networks research.
- ilaksh 6y agoWhoops. Its Ferran not Ferren.
- the_decider 6y agoThe first trained multilayer deep neural network was presented by the Soviets in 1970 in a paper titled “Heuristic Self-Organization in Problems of Engineering Cybernetics“ http://www.gmdh.net/articles/history/heuristic.pdf http://www.gmdh.net/articles/history/heuristic.pdf
- Barrin92 6y agoI feel it's some kind of unwritten law that every time you think you've solved something, there's some Soviet engineer who already did it a few decades ago I imagine the solution to every problem can be found lying on a shelf, untranslated in a research lab in the middle of nowhere in Russia
- walterbell 6y agoThey also developed TRIZ, a Russian algorithm for inventing new systems, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ > a theory which defines generalisable patterns in the nature of inventive solutions and the distinguishing characteristics of the problems that these inventions have overcome It's been used by Samsung and other orgs.
- eternalban 6y agohttps://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/40_principles_of_TRIZ_method_720dpi.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/40_princ... Looking at that cheat-sheet, it's interesting how you can recognize elements of one's own process. I bet almost everyone can check off a few of those boxes as "I do this all the time". Also interesting to note there are no interaction principles. "19 Pulsed Action Periodic Action" can be mapped in software systems to PUSH+Timer, but that's it. TRIZ apparently lacks the vocabulary to explore the space of interacting components [as first class "principles"].
- jbay808 6y agoIf you ever really need to invalidate a patent, a good way is to hire a Russian-speaking agent to sift through old engineering journals and libraries. A lot of prior art turns up that nobody knows about.
- PinkMilkshake 6y agoI first learned about cybernetics through the book Creation: Life and How to Make It by Steve Grand. Grand created the Creatures video game and applied ideas from cybernetics. As a result, each Norn (the name of the fictional species the game is about) has a genome, a neural network brain, a fairly complex biochemistry, sensors and actuators.
- briga 6y agoIs there any point in learning about cybernetics these days? It certainly sounds very important. But does it have an impact on software engineering as we know it today? Side note: I find it interesting that Weiner's book, which was fairly technical and full of rather arcane calculus, was widely popular among general readers. Just goes to show how much reading culture has changed since the 50s.
- merridew22 6y agoI would highly recommend reading Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer. It’s the most fantastic layman’s introduction to cybernetics, written from the perspective of the economist behind the “Cyber” in the Chilean CyberSyn project (1970-3). I discovered him reading People’s Republic of Walmart, another fantastic book about how effective socialist strategies for centralized government are applied in piecemeal to the largest corporations on the globe. Highly, highly recommended—-and yes, I believe it’s valuable to learn about cybernetics. It teaches us that we don’t need more computers, or faster computers—-we need to use computers in different ways. Basically, we’ve already got the solutions to our problems, but we don’t implement them because we’re trapped by classic civilizational barriers (it’s hard to change people’s minds in the face of a culture that doesn’t want their minds to change).
- carschno 6y agoFor a more recent study about the Chilean approach, I can recommend "Cybernetic Revolutionaries" by Eden Medina (2011, MIT Press, [link](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cybernetic-revolutionaries https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/cybernetic-revolutionaries)).
- nanna 6y ago+1 This is the standard work on Chile's Cybersyn. All articles and chapters on it found elsewhere are basically rewritings of this book.
- merridew22 6y agoThank you for this!
- nanna 6y agoI wrote my PhD on the philosophy of Norbert Wiener, namely, 'cybernetics'. I think what people haven't realised is that for Wiener - though not necessarily the successive generations of Cyberneticians per se - cybernetics names not only a transdisciplinary field of study, not only a primitive form of control engineering, but a philosophical system that contends directly with GW Leibniz's monadology. Wiener considered it to be a kind of monster, a 'golem', since whereas the monadology posits universal beneficence throughout nature and humankind, Wiener's cybernetics is, when applied to human societies, structurally, infinitely, conflictual. Moreover it points towards awesome consolidations of power. Generations of readers of cybernetics have completely missed or disregarded this aspect of his thought, conveniently mistaking a system of regulation in nature for a system of regulation in artificial human societies. For Wiener there is no self-regulation in the body politic, societies are fundamentally anti-homeostatic, and the techniques that his generation had bequeathed to the world would only exacerbate its positive feedback loop. This is why, for me, Wiener is still so compelling, despite the unfathomable equations, the desperate arrogance, the stuffy air of cigars. He was the first to see the world that Snowden brought to the public's attention. And it's all there, systematically in 1948 (and even, sort of, earlier).
- AndrewKemendo 6y agoWould be interested to read that if you have it available online! I was really disappointed when I first learned about Cybernetics, to read that it had fallen out of favor, breaking into a thousand discrete disciplines. "Cognitive Science" seems to be the closest modern inter-disciplinary topic. I suppose it comes down to the reality that the practical applications of a true "cybernetics" discipline would be so narrow that it would be a tiny field.
- specialist 6y agoPlease say more. I would LOVE to hear how Wiener might interpret today's world. As a total noob, I'm often delighted by the insights of earlier commentators. The people who lived thru great transformations, so can remember the before times, allowing them to see the now more clearly. Like your lament about Wiener's ignored analysis and insights, rereading McLuhan was very fruitful. His concept of autoamputation seems to have been completely ignored. (Over stimulation leads to shutting down that sensory input.) But it's such a great way of describing the impact of modern rhetoric. Sometimes I wonder if it's like Steve Jobs' visit to Xerox PARC. Jobs admits they (Apple) were so captivated by GUIs they totally missed other breakthrough concepts like object-oriented.
- oedmarap 6y ago> The word cybernetics comes from the greek κυβερνήτης (kybernḗtēs) which means a pilot, governor, someone who steers. TIL: Where Kubernetes got its name from.