CYBERNETICS: A Definition

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        <b>CYBERNETICS: A Definition</b>
      
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        [In 1990 Heinz von Foerster was approached by Macmillan to compose an entry for their 1991 
        Macmillan Encyclopedia of Computers. Von Foerster recommended them to me and I composed 
        the following text and incorporated a figure that I had created for 
      
      
        <u>an earlier purpose <../syllabi/AI-vs-Cyb-syllabus.html></u>
      
      
        . My original text follows, which was published in a slightly re-edited form. Final text 
        is Copyright (c) Macmillan Publishing.]
      
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        Artificial Intelligence and cybernetics: Aren't they the same thing? Or, isn't one about 
        computers and the other about robots? The answer to these questions is emphatically, No.
      
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        Artificial Intelligence (AI) uses computer technology to strive toward the goal of machine 
        intelligence and considers implementation as the most important result; cybernetics uses 
        epistemology (the limits to how we know what we know) to understand the constraints of any 
        medium (technological, biological, or social) and considers powerful descriptions as the 
        most important result.
      
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        The field of AI came into being when the concept of universal computation [Minsky 1967], 
        the cultural view of the brain as a computer, and the availability of digital computing 
        machines were combined. The field of cybernetics came into being when concepts of 
        information, feedback, and control [Wiener 1948] were generalized from specific 
        applications (e.g. in engineering) to systems in general, including systems of living 
        organisms, abstract intelligent processes and language. 
      
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