IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2015 - 60

commentary

D. Hill

am neither a mathematician nor an
engineer, so my references in this article to the technical
aspects of Wiener's contributions
in those disciplines will be minimal,
and, I hope, safely general.
What I am is a journalist who
for more than two decades has
studied the history and philosophy
of technology, and who recently
completed a book based on those
studies [1]. In the final section of
that book I pay homage to Norbert
Wiener's outspoken ethical stands
in regard to the dangers of the technologies he was so instrumental in

I

Norbert Wiener and
the Counter-Tradition
to the Dream of
Mastery

technology-fueled consumption pose
significant threats to health and the
environment. He predicted that within the foreseeable future we would
be facing growing coal and
gas shortages, growing scarcity of water with which
to supply our cities, growing rates of infection due
Wiener was far ahead of his time
to increased air travel and
antibiotic resistance, growin recognizing that our habits of
ing problems related to protechnology-fueled consumption
cessed and synthetic foods,
growing risks of nuclear
pose significant threats to health
power accidents, and growing risks of nuclear war.
and the environment.
One of the technologies that worried Wiener
most was the one he was
bringing into being. It is Wiener's
most directly responsible for creethics and the ideas behind them
ating, automation. Today we are
that I'd like to talk about here.
hearing a striking amount of public
Wiener was far ahead of his time
discussion and debate about the
in recognizing that our habits of
impact automation is likely to have
on employment. That intelligent
machines might be used by ownDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2015.2461171
ers and managers to eliminate or
Date of publication: 16 September 2015

60

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

demean jobs on a massive scale
was a prospect that Wiener spoke
of often. "Those who suffer from a
power complex," he wrote, "find the
mechanization of man a simple way
to realize their ambitions" [2].
Wiener did more than worry
about these things. He spoke out
about them, in best-selling books, in
magazine articles, and in speeches.
He also declined to participate in
military and corporate projects that
would make those threats more likely to materialize, a stance that cost
him dearly in terms of his career, his
pocketbook, and his reputation.
In his personal life, Wiener
was in many respects a difficult,
unpleasant man, but his willingness
to stand up for what he believed in,
and his willingness to pay the price
for those beliefs, make him, in my
view, a genuinely heroic figure.
Perhaps the perception of Wiener's that most impresses me, and
that I think is most crucial for us
to understand, remember, and act
∕

september 2015



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