The Human Use of Human Beings - by Norbert Wiener (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

For the 75th anniversary, a new edition of The Human Use of Human Beings--the 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 cybernetics--the study of the relationship between computers and the human nervous system--was 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 today's 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 impact--in effect, a third industrial revolution--that the computer has had on our lives.

Review Quotes

"It presents cybernetics as a scientific theory and a social philosophy. From the latter standpoint, the writing is often brilliant and forceful." -- New York Times

"It is hardly possible to read him without being startled to furious and fruitful thinking, moved to deep and reverberating emotion. He is a Jeremiah with the taste and learning of a Renaissance humanist, the free-ranging intellectual gusto of a William James." -- Christian Science Monitor

"Norbert Weiner's seminal 1950 book . . . investigates the interplay between human beings and machines in a world in which machines are becoming ever more computationally capable and powerful. It is a remarkably prescient book." -- Seth Lloyd, Slate

"Immensely insightful and increasingly relevant." -- Maria Popova