Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History
by Thomas Rid
ISBN 13: 978-0393354959
Book description

"Dazzling.” ― Financial Times As lives offline and online merge even more, it is easy to forget how we got here. Rise of the Machines reclaims the spectacular story of cybernetics, one of the twentieth century’s pivotal ideas. Springing from the mind of mathematician Norbert Wiener amid the devastation of World War II, the cybernetic vision underpinned a host of seductive myths about the future of machines. Cybernetics triggered blissful cults and military gizmos, the Whole Earth Catalog and the air force’s foray into virtual space, as well as crypto-anarchists fighting for internet freedom. In Rise of the Machines, Thomas Rid draws on unpublished sources―including interviews with hippies, anarchists, sleuths, and spies―to offer an unparalleled perspective into our anxious embrace of technology. 32 pages of illustrations


Recommended on 1 episode:

The Government Knows AGI is Coming
Artificial general intelligence — an A.I. system that can beat humans at almost any cognitive task — is arriving in just a couple of years. That’s what people tell me — people who work in A.I. labs, researchers who follow their work, former White House officials. A lot of these people have been calling me over the last couple of months trying to convey the urgency. This is coming during President Trump’s term, they tell me. We’re not ready. One of the people who reached out to me was Ben Buchanan, the top adviser on A.I. in the Biden White House. And I thought it would be interesting to have him on the show for a couple reasons: He’s not connected to an A.I. lab, and he was at the nerve center of policymaking on A.I. for years. So what does he see coming? What keeps him up at night? And what does he think the Trump administration needs to do to get ready for the AGI — or something like AGI — he believes is right on the horizon? This episode contains strong language.
Ben Buchanan March 4, 2025 3 books recommended
View
by @zachbellay