The Second Industrial Revolution and its Educational, Economic and Social Challenges

Abstract

Wiener’s thinking on automatization and its socio-economic consequences was far ahead of its time. Guided by his clear perception of the electronic computer (cf. his 1940 memorandum, § 13D), and his sharp understanding of feedback, derived from his war work and physiological interests (§ 14E, 15B), he had concluded by about 1942 that a high-speed computer, properly programmed, could be made to run an automatic factory. In his words:

… the modern ultra-rapid computing machine was in principle an ideal central nervous system to an apparatus for automatic control; and … its input and output need not be in the form of numbers or diagrams but might very well be, respectively, the readings of artificial sense organs. such as photoelectric cells or thermometers, and the performance of motors or solenoids. With the aid of strain gauges or similar agencies to read the performance of these motor organs and to report, to “feed back,” to the central control system as an artificial kinesthetic sense, we are already in a position to construct artificial machines of almost any degree of elaborateness of performance. [61c, pp. 26, 27] (emphasis added)