[merridew22]

Huh. I’ve read Brain of the Firm, and Heart of the Enterprise, as well as Weiner’s Introduction to Cybernetics, and I found that the material is challenging but rewarding, not “sheer gorp.” Contrary to the summary that this blog offers, cybernetics is defined pretty thoroughly as the study of viable systems; i.e. anything that continues to maintain itself. This “cybernetic” field is named so because of the Greek word for “governance.”

[scottlocklin]

I wrote the summary after reading the books.

Cybernetics ... well, let's just say it was the "AI" of its time, which eventually evolved into something useful (I guess Germans call operations research this name). Beer had nothing to do with Weiner; he was a hanger on and a professional wanker. Reading Beer in current year would be like reading Eliezer Yudkowsky or Bostrum and hoping to learn something about deep learning.

Mind you I found Beer an extremely likeable mountebank. Compared to current year "AI" numskulls, 9/10 for personality alone.