IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2017 - 43

June 2017

credIT: cOurTeSy M.I.T.

government-university relationship
continued. M.I.T. in particular was a
major recipient of funding of projects
with potential military value. Some of
you may remember or have heard of
the famous Building 20 with its radar
and electronic device contributions.
Most universities and colleges rely
heavily on enrollment and tuition.
But, if I remember correctly, 50% of
the cost for running M.I.T. came from
contracts. Norbert was opposed and
refused to work on government-fund-
ed projects from that time.
Norbert had an ego, liked to talk
about his ideas as for example at the
famous Macy Conferences. But he
was also a learner. He incorporated
probability and statistical mechanics
such as practiced by Gibbs into his
thinking and work. From people
such as neuroscientist Warren McCull-
och and Walter Pitts, he learned about
how the brain appears to function and
thought of machines that could mimic
the brain. He was good at giving credit
to his students or to colleagues
with whom he worked. However,
there was a period in his life in which
he unfortunately turned away from
his colleagues. It was rumored that
this split was due to a fake personal
affair manufactured by his wife.
While Wiener's work was highly
theoretical, he preferred working
where there was a practical applica-
tion. For example communications,
filters, and even an arm that he devel-
oped with the Massachusetts Gener-
al Hospital in Boston - many topics
of the conference. During World I, he
worked on generating artillery tables
and in World War II, he worked on
an anti-aircraft system against high
speed aircraft. He originated and
coined the term cybernetics - the
field of communications and control
of humans, animals, and machines
and incorporating feedback.
Milton Friedman, the American
free market economist had a saying
that I believe Norbert would agree

with - the power to do good is also
the power to do harm.
Wiener knew that smart machines,
robots, could make life easier in per-
forming certain tasks, particularly in
manufacturing. But what about the
downside? If it put people out of work
and without any other employment,
it would be disastrous.
Then humans could put ma -
chines, robots to work engaged in
fighting other humans - war. Ulti-
mately, machines could be smart
enough to engage war themselves
on humans. Machines have to
be controlled.
Did Norbert Wiener have a reason
to worry?
Manufacturing and warehousing
have certainly made use of smart
machines, robots. Productivity has
increased. Some jobs have been elim-
inated but to a large extent replaced.
In the U.S., jobs in the service indus-
try have largely replaced those lost
in  manufacturing. But these jobs
usually result in lower wages. Also,
independent of the effect of smart
machines, manufacturing has shifted
from the U.S. to Mexico and South-
east Asia to take advantage of the
lower cost of labor, human machines
not necessarily smart machines.
Thinking has already begun in the
use of smart machines in war. The U.S.
∕

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine

Army's chief roboticist at the Army
Tank Automotive Research, Develop-
ment, and Engineering Center has
been quoted recently stating, "There's
no reason why the first contact with
an enemy force should be with a man-
platform, because it means that plat-
form is at the greatest risk."
Machines are continuing to get
smarter. I believe IBM has invested 1
billion dollars in WATSON, to find and
develop applications for its powerful
machine that beat 2 highly skilled
humans in the game Jeopardy.
Autonomous, self-driving cars are
under development and not only
by car manufacturers. I understand
that Domino's Pizza has teamed up
with an Australian startup to turn a
military robot into the first autono-
mous pizza delivery vehicle. Now with
machine learning and the rebirth of
artificial intelligence, machines are
getting even smarter. Even Amazon
and Google are now offering machine
learning programs for subscribers.
South Korea is putting close to
a billion dollars into artificial intelli-
gence after Google's AlphaGo com-
puter program beat Lee Se-dol, a
South Korean professional Go player
who is ranked second in internation-
al titles. He was beaten 4 games to
1. It is said that the Chinese strategy
board game has 10 to the 360 pos-
sible moves in a typical game, an
incomprehensible amount.
All of which leads us to this con-
ference: the 2016 IEEE Conference
on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Cen-
tury - Thinking Machines in the
Physical World.
Thank you Norbert Wiener!

Author Information
Arthur W. Winston is Director of the
Gordon Institute and Research Pro-
fessor of electrical engineering at
Tufts University. He was 2004 Presi-
dent of the IEEE. Email: a.winston@
tufts.edu.

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