Models and Theories in Human-Computer Interaction/Cybernetics - more differences than similarities to AI

Wiener’s Cybernetics - more differences than similarities to AI. Cybernetics as defined by Wiener is “the science of control and communication, in the animal and the machine” (Wiener, 1948). Or in other words, the art of steermanship (Ashby, 1956).

Connecting control with communication, and acknowledging that both living animals, and non-living machines can operate according to this principle, it defines the interactions of goals, predictions, actions, feedback, and responses in various systems, inherited from both information theory and the philosophy of technology.

Cybernetics can be applied to systems that incorporate feedback loops, where an action taken by the system influences a change in its environment that is then reflected back, provoking a state change within that system. A machine example would be my remote pool heating equipment. It’s set to thermostatically maintain the pool temperature at 88 degrees Fahrenheit. When the temperature drops below that level, it sends a signal to the system, that then turns the heater on to attain the desired temperature again. As the temperature rises and falls it visualizes those state changes on a cloud-based GUI, that I can access from anywhere in the world.

The pre-fix cyber however, has led to many misconceptions about cybernetics, and I admit I was not immune to them as I have been conflating Artificial Intelligence (AI), with Cybernetics. The former presumes that intelligence can be stored and reproduced inside a machine and that the application of reproducing that intelligence is equivalent or greater to that of humans (Minsky, 1968). The latter is concerned with systems that can achieve goals, both simple and complex. Achieving goals requires feedback to course-correct, or steer in order to accomplish them. Thus researchers in the field of AI attempt to build intelligent machines, and practitioners of cybernetics use models of interactions to understand the limits of systems (Pangaro, 1990).

Cited Ashby R.W. (1956). An Introduction to Cybernetics. Chapman & Hall, London. http://pcp.vub.ac.be/books/IntroCyb.pdf (1999). Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machine. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Technology Press; New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Minsky M. (1968). Semantic Information Processing. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. Pangaro P. (1990). Cybernetics - A Definition. Macmillan Publishing. http://pangaro.com/published/cyber-macmillan.html 20/04/2004