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Ramage, Magnus and Bissell, Christopher
(2015).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/isis-summit-vienna-2015-s1006
Abstract
The study of information and its values has long been deeply tied up with the field of cybernetics, which studies informational processes of feedback occurring in a range of social, artificial and physical systems. Although sometimes derided as a mechanistic and anti-humanising discipline, cybernetics has always been an applied field, strongly tied to real-world phenomena. Many of its practitioners have been strongly aware of its power and potential for harm as well as good.
In particular, the origins of much of modern cybernetics during and shortly after the Second World War have forced a number of its practitioners actively to examine the military applications of their work. In this paper, we will consider four historical snapshots of cyberneticists wrestling with the ethical implications of their work, from the 1940s to the 1970s, in the United States and in Germany.
Cybernetics in general, and automatic control in particular, is a discipline that depends on the capture, transmission and processing of information. It is remarkable that after the Second World War so many engineers found the ethical and philosophical issues that had arisen so important. This paper will examine some of these.
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- Item ORO ID
- 42766
- Item Type
- Conference or Workshop Item
- Extra Information
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Part of the ISIS Summit Vienna 2015
The Information Society at the Crossroads: Response and Responsibility of the Sciences of Information - Academic Unit or School
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Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) > Computing and Communications
Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) - Copyright Holders
- © 2015 The Authors
- Related URLs
- Depositing User
- Magnus Ramage