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Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History
"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 In Rise of the Machines, Thomas Rid draws on unpublished sources―including interviews with hippies, anarchists, sleuths, and spies―to offer an unparalleled perspective into our anxious embrace of technology. 32 pages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
464 pages, Paperback
First published June 27, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
September 10, 2016
This book deserves to be read and not ignored as this one seems to be. To understand where we are going sometimes one must first understand how we got there.
The author uses a chronological approach by decade and seamlessly ties each of the stories together as if he is a writing a brilliant work of fiction with an overriding narrative leading to a beautiful quilt made of many different tapestries.
He starts the story within WW II and the necessity for an artillery gun to anticipate the movement of manned airplanes and takes the listener through many other excursions such as L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics (and Scientology), Ashbey's Homeostasis contraption (a complicated machine that was said to be alive because of it's innate ability to reach complex state of equilibrium after systematic perturbations, a fascinating story and well told), LSD and Timothy Leary, Psycho Cybernetics (a book in almost everyone's house for all of the 1970s), The Whole Earth Catalog, "The Monkey's Paw Story" (you can watch a version on Youtube) and the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" and how they relate to our cybernetic advancements, PGP (Pretty Good Privacy, the default standard for encryption), and many other fascinating stories all seamlessly woven together.
The author does an amazing job of weaving the stories as a coherent whole and also does a summary chapter explaining how all the pieces fit together. Not to spoil it for the listener, but his theme is along the lines that humans first use tools (such as a peg leg on a pirate or a club in the hands of the baseball player) and slowly makes the tools interact more "magically" with the human, then the next step is the machine itself became the tool, and then the "network is the computer" (not his words, but a slogan from the 90s for Sun Microsystem that seems appropriate) and finally the community itself becomes completely connected and tends towards an organic system as a whole.
Overall, a fine book and deserves to have a larger audience than what it seems to be achieving, and is more satisfying than most of the recent pop science books I've been reading lately.
The author uses a chronological approach by decade and seamlessly ties each of the stories together as if he is a writing a brilliant work of fiction with an overriding narrative leading to a beautiful quilt made of many different tapestries.
He starts the story within WW II and the necessity for an artillery gun to anticipate the movement of manned airplanes and takes the listener through many other excursions such as L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics (and Scientology), Ashbey's Homeostasis contraption (a complicated machine that was said to be alive because of it's innate ability to reach complex state of equilibrium after systematic perturbations, a fascinating story and well told), LSD and Timothy Leary, Psycho Cybernetics (a book in almost everyone's house for all of the 1970s), The Whole Earth Catalog, "The Monkey's Paw Story" (you can watch a version on Youtube) and the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" and how they relate to our cybernetic advancements, PGP (Pretty Good Privacy, the default standard for encryption), and many other fascinating stories all seamlessly woven together.
The author does an amazing job of weaving the stories as a coherent whole and also does a summary chapter explaining how all the pieces fit together. Not to spoil it for the listener, but his theme is along the lines that humans first use tools (such as a peg leg on a pirate or a club in the hands of the baseball player) and slowly makes the tools interact more "magically" with the human, then the next step is the machine itself became the tool, and then the "network is the computer" (not his words, but a slogan from the 90s for Sun Microsystem that seems appropriate) and finally the community itself becomes completely connected and tends towards an organic system as a whole.
Overall, a fine book and deserves to have a larger audience than what it seems to be achieving, and is more satisfying than most of the recent pop science books I've been reading lately.
January 8, 2017
If you want a new idea, read an old book. Thomas Rid has done precisely that to reveal the lost history of ‘cybernetics’. In turn he provides new insight to many of our most pressing contemporary philosophical, technological and social questions.
It’s rare to read a current affairs book that doesn’t deal in some way with the vast new power of machines. Typically, this challenge is presented as both new and future-oriented. AI is just around the corner. Mass unemployment from robotics will soon disrupt society. Robots fighting robots will be tomorrow’s battlespace.
Only, none of this is actually new. Rid traces three recurring themes which have shaped the history of ‘cybernetics’. Originally a scientific discipline it came to serve as a launch pad and language for a wide variety of communities who used the emergence of complex ‘thinking’ machines to rethink and challenge existing forms of life and social organisation.
The first big idea of cybernetics is that machines are like man, giving rise to notions of computers being ‘alive’, Artificial Intelligence, and in turn our religious notions of sentience and community. Second, is the notion that man is like a machine, giving rise to notions of mechanical and organic tools, prosthesis, extensions and enablers, as well as some rudimentary but useful theories of consciousness and cognitive science. Third and finally is the idea that there is a ‘space’ within the machines which can be inhabited, utilised or retreated into.
These three ideas have motivated dozens of disparate groups as well as divided them between their optimists and pessimists. The military and national security community led the way developing new forms of computing, robotics and networks to try and control their environment. These official communities have often simultaneously reviled in the potential firepower, secrecy and ‘information superiority’ they might enjoy, as well as feared the extended vulnerability and loss of control the same process have created.
Equally many spiritualists and anarchists have seen utopia in the machines. As a way to stand outside of the state, to break out of consumerist corporate models or to develop new forms of interaction and value, these communities have also significantly contributed. In particular, a San Francisco bay culture emerged over many decades that is optimistic about technology and technological solutions, while libertarian in orientation.
In one fascinating section Rid shows how many of those most connected with the 1960s and 1970s advocacy of psychedelic drugs (such as Timothy Leary) also embraced the revolutionary power of machines. There must be something inherent to this, given that I’ve witnessed similarly overlapping communities exist here in Australia, several decades on and 12’000 km away.
The penultimate chapter reveals for the first time the history of ‘Moonlight Maze’ a sustained hack of the United States military and research communities in 1998 and 1999. The —likely Russian— perpetrators used unprotected host computers in NGOs, Library’s and Universities to access US networks in search of military technology and development information. While many who write about hacking fall into either Hollywood action or technical arcana, Rid manages to tell the story in a way that is both detailed and engaging, repeating the skill he showed in ‘Cyberwar will not take place’.
At times in ‘Rise of the Machines’ it feels like Rid tries to cover too much ground with the rapid introduction to new figures occasionally becoming overwhelming. The closer the events are to the current day, the more this emerges. Which turns the book’s focus ever so slightly in the last 150 pages from the ideas (how do man and machine interact) to the behaviour, attitudes and aspirations of those pursuing different approaches. Which is interesting as a potted history, but leaves some of the most interesting discussions to the short final chapter. Likewise, Moonlight Maze is a great story, but I was never quite sure how it helped expand or explore the thematic ideas of the book.
These are minor criticisms that should not deter anyone from picking the book up. Rid is an excellent scholar who has worked hard to make this book as widely engaging as possible. That is to his credit, as the history of this book ought to be much more common knowledge. Indeed, much of the book speaks to how long term and enduring our problems are. Take this exchange Rid highlights from 1962 between a reporter and then US President John F. Kennedy:
“Reporter: ‘Mr President, Our Labor Department estimates that approximately 1.8 million persons holding jobs are replaced every year by machines. How urgently do you view this problem – automation?’
Kennedy: ‘I regard it as the major domestic challenge, really, of the ‘60s, to maintain full employment at a time when automation, of course, is replacing men’.”
Of course, Kennedy was wrong. But how he was wrong is an important lesson. As Rid ultimately argues, these three ideas Man-Machine, Machine-Man and Machine Worlds reflect common myths of the cybernetic and technological communities. If we are to have new ideas about our current problems, or to better understand how pressing they actually are, then remembering this ‘lost’ history of thought is a necessary step.
It’s rare to read a current affairs book that doesn’t deal in some way with the vast new power of machines. Typically, this challenge is presented as both new and future-oriented. AI is just around the corner. Mass unemployment from robotics will soon disrupt society. Robots fighting robots will be tomorrow’s battlespace.
Only, none of this is actually new. Rid traces three recurring themes which have shaped the history of ‘cybernetics’. Originally a scientific discipline it came to serve as a launch pad and language for a wide variety of communities who used the emergence of complex ‘thinking’ machines to rethink and challenge existing forms of life and social organisation.
The first big idea of cybernetics is that machines are like man, giving rise to notions of computers being ‘alive’, Artificial Intelligence, and in turn our religious notions of sentience and community. Second, is the notion that man is like a machine, giving rise to notions of mechanical and organic tools, prosthesis, extensions and enablers, as well as some rudimentary but useful theories of consciousness and cognitive science. Third and finally is the idea that there is a ‘space’ within the machines which can be inhabited, utilised or retreated into.
These three ideas have motivated dozens of disparate groups as well as divided them between their optimists and pessimists. The military and national security community led the way developing new forms of computing, robotics and networks to try and control their environment. These official communities have often simultaneously reviled in the potential firepower, secrecy and ‘information superiority’ they might enjoy, as well as feared the extended vulnerability and loss of control the same process have created.
Equally many spiritualists and anarchists have seen utopia in the machines. As a way to stand outside of the state, to break out of consumerist corporate models or to develop new forms of interaction and value, these communities have also significantly contributed. In particular, a San Francisco bay culture emerged over many decades that is optimistic about technology and technological solutions, while libertarian in orientation.
In one fascinating section Rid shows how many of those most connected with the 1960s and 1970s advocacy of psychedelic drugs (such as Timothy Leary) also embraced the revolutionary power of machines. There must be something inherent to this, given that I’ve witnessed similarly overlapping communities exist here in Australia, several decades on and 12’000 km away.
The penultimate chapter reveals for the first time the history of ‘Moonlight Maze’ a sustained hack of the United States military and research communities in 1998 and 1999. The —likely Russian— perpetrators used unprotected host computers in NGOs, Library’s and Universities to access US networks in search of military technology and development information. While many who write about hacking fall into either Hollywood action or technical arcana, Rid manages to tell the story in a way that is both detailed and engaging, repeating the skill he showed in ‘Cyberwar will not take place’.
At times in ‘Rise of the Machines’ it feels like Rid tries to cover too much ground with the rapid introduction to new figures occasionally becoming overwhelming. The closer the events are to the current day, the more this emerges. Which turns the book’s focus ever so slightly in the last 150 pages from the ideas (how do man and machine interact) to the behaviour, attitudes and aspirations of those pursuing different approaches. Which is interesting as a potted history, but leaves some of the most interesting discussions to the short final chapter. Likewise, Moonlight Maze is a great story, but I was never quite sure how it helped expand or explore the thematic ideas of the book.
These are minor criticisms that should not deter anyone from picking the book up. Rid is an excellent scholar who has worked hard to make this book as widely engaging as possible. That is to his credit, as the history of this book ought to be much more common knowledge. Indeed, much of the book speaks to how long term and enduring our problems are. Take this exchange Rid highlights from 1962 between a reporter and then US President John F. Kennedy:
“Reporter: ‘Mr President, Our Labor Department estimates that approximately 1.8 million persons holding jobs are replaced every year by machines. How urgently do you view this problem – automation?’
Kennedy: ‘I regard it as the major domestic challenge, really, of the ‘60s, to maintain full employment at a time when automation, of course, is replacing men’.”
Of course, Kennedy was wrong. But how he was wrong is an important lesson. As Rid ultimately argues, these three ideas Man-Machine, Machine-Man and Machine Worlds reflect common myths of the cybernetic and technological communities. If we are to have new ideas about our current problems, or to better understand how pressing they actually are, then remembering this ‘lost’ history of thought is a necessary step.
April 8, 2024
This book may be particularly challenging for readers who did not see in person at an airfield museum what a Sperry turret was or who did not fine tune stereos that had homeostasis needle gauges or who did not use computer screens with laser guns.
Thomas Rid does a fine job following through on plan of keeping the topic more about definitions, theory, and other large shifts in technology and how we understand it.
I learned more than I expected. It was challenging to read. I am hesitant to recommend it to anyone, particularly those under 50 or so.
Thomas Rid does a fine job following through on plan of keeping the topic more about definitions, theory, and other large shifts in technology and how we understand it.
I learned more than I expected. It was challenging to read. I am hesitant to recommend it to anyone, particularly those under 50 or so.
October 30, 2016
This book began with a heavy and decided focus on Claude Shannon's contribution to the field of cybernetics. Though I have read a lot about Shannon's work, this was the first time it was skewed to highlight his contribution to our understanding of cyborgs. Back when I learned about philosophy of mind (Andy Clark, The Churchlands, Dennett, Putnam, etc), Shannon's name was conspicuously absent from my lectures and assigned readings. IMO, this was a huge mistake. It seems to me that we cannot understand cyborgs of any kind without understanding the contribution of Shannon. I had always thought about Shannon in relation to information theory. And while it is certainly connected to AI, I hadn't really made some of the connections made by this author. It was my favorite part of this book.
This author provided an extremely detailed history of cybernetics, including both serious scientists and charlatans such as L. Ron Hubbard. Not surprisingly, cybernetics, like so many other scientific fields, was initially funded by the military in the hopes that it would be useful. Even less surprising, people who didn't understand basic science attempted to use the science of cybernetics for the purposes of pseudoscience. This practice is still ongoing. The history relating to Scientology was amusing and definitely worth reading.
I would recommend following this book by reading Andy Clark's Natural Born Cyborgs.
This author provided an extremely detailed history of cybernetics, including both serious scientists and charlatans such as L. Ron Hubbard. Not surprisingly, cybernetics, like so many other scientific fields, was initially funded by the military in the hopes that it would be useful. Even less surprising, people who didn't understand basic science attempted to use the science of cybernetics for the purposes of pseudoscience. This practice is still ongoing. The history relating to Scientology was amusing and definitely worth reading.
I would recommend following this book by reading Andy Clark's Natural Born Cyborgs.
November 10, 2018
More thoughts to come but I'll share this much for now: this book is not what I expected from the description on the cover. Half the book was focused and relevant to the subject I was looking for. The other half was still very interesting, but not quite what I was hoping to read. If not for this issue, this may have rated much higher.
August 27, 2016
O que é que queremos dizer quando afixamos o prefixo ciber a qualquer conceito? Cibernético, ciberespaço, ciberguerra, cyborg, cyberpunk. São termos que nos rodeiam num dia a dia contemporâneo, dependente de tecnologias digitais. Neste livro, Thomas Rid leva-nos numa viagem à descoberta da origem deste termo, mostrando como está intimamente relacionado com uma ideia muito específica de simbiose entre homem e máquina, intuída nos conceitos invocados por este termo.
A história começa na II Guerra Mundial, quando o matemático Norman Wiener, às voltas com o problema de controlo de fogo anti-aéreo, se fascina com as possibilidades de sistemas que conjuguem automatização computorizada e o homem. Criou o termo cibernética, definido como o controle automatizado de sistemas. O conceito alastrou numa época em que forma dados os primeiros passos do que viria a ser o nosso moderno mundo digital, com o desenvolvimento das arquitecturas e tecnologias de computação. A visão futurista de mescla homem-máquina passou do campo da investigação aplicada para a psicologia popular, e daí para a contra-cultura dos anos 60, numa mistura curiosa de químicos alucinogénicos e filosofias de transcendência dos limites humanos através da tecnologia digital. William Gibson leva o conceito para a literatura de ficção científica, deixando a marca indelével do seu conceito de ciberespaço como alucinação consensual mediada por computador. Outros escritores de FC mostram-se influentes neste campo, como a visão de mundos virtuais por Vernor Vinge em True Names que inspira as experiências de incipiente realidade virtual, ao mesmo tempo que confluem tecnologias de simbiose homem-máquina militares, especulações trans e pós-humanistas de índole académica, e crescimento do uso de computadores e da então nascente internet. Rid ainda nos fala do fenómeno cypherpunk, quando a matemática se tornou uma arma controlada devido ao poder dos algoritmos de encriptação, e das guerras entre activistas e governos para levantar restrições a esta tecnologia. Termina com o fascínio militar pelo conceito, com as ideias sobre guerra no ciberespaço e análises ao potencial de ataques digitais aos sistemas informáticos que se tornaram a estrutura da nossa sociedade.
O autor resiste à tentação de nos dar um quadro único, mostrando que o conceito, bem como a forma como o entendemos, evoluiu a par com as tecnologias e os seus impactos na sociedade. Mais do que uma ideia estanque, o cyber aplica-se às míriades de vertentes onde o controle humano se mescla com capacidades aumentativas tecnológicas. Quer sejam os velhos sonhos de cyborgs, que a tecnologia médica parece trazer cada vez mais próximo do banal, quer os sistemas complexos civis e militares que pervadem o mundo contemporâneo, e de uma forma especialmente individual a extensão para geografias electrónicas dos espaços onde cada um de nós se move, age e intervém.
A história começa na II Guerra Mundial, quando o matemático Norman Wiener, às voltas com o problema de controlo de fogo anti-aéreo, se fascina com as possibilidades de sistemas que conjuguem automatização computorizada e o homem. Criou o termo cibernética, definido como o controle automatizado de sistemas. O conceito alastrou numa época em que forma dados os primeiros passos do que viria a ser o nosso moderno mundo digital, com o desenvolvimento das arquitecturas e tecnologias de computação. A visão futurista de mescla homem-máquina passou do campo da investigação aplicada para a psicologia popular, e daí para a contra-cultura dos anos 60, numa mistura curiosa de químicos alucinogénicos e filosofias de transcendência dos limites humanos através da tecnologia digital. William Gibson leva o conceito para a literatura de ficção científica, deixando a marca indelével do seu conceito de ciberespaço como alucinação consensual mediada por computador. Outros escritores de FC mostram-se influentes neste campo, como a visão de mundos virtuais por Vernor Vinge em True Names que inspira as experiências de incipiente realidade virtual, ao mesmo tempo que confluem tecnologias de simbiose homem-máquina militares, especulações trans e pós-humanistas de índole académica, e crescimento do uso de computadores e da então nascente internet. Rid ainda nos fala do fenómeno cypherpunk, quando a matemática se tornou uma arma controlada devido ao poder dos algoritmos de encriptação, e das guerras entre activistas e governos para levantar restrições a esta tecnologia. Termina com o fascínio militar pelo conceito, com as ideias sobre guerra no ciberespaço e análises ao potencial de ataques digitais aos sistemas informáticos que se tornaram a estrutura da nossa sociedade.
O autor resiste à tentação de nos dar um quadro único, mostrando que o conceito, bem como a forma como o entendemos, evoluiu a par com as tecnologias e os seus impactos na sociedade. Mais do que uma ideia estanque, o cyber aplica-se às míriades de vertentes onde o controle humano se mescla com capacidades aumentativas tecnológicas. Quer sejam os velhos sonhos de cyborgs, que a tecnologia médica parece trazer cada vez mais próximo do banal, quer os sistemas complexos civis e militares que pervadem o mundo contemporâneo, e de uma forma especialmente individual a extensão para geografias electrónicas dos espaços onde cada um de nós se move, age e intervém.
November 20, 2016
The Soul of a New Machine, a painstakingly detailed tale of the personalities and technical work involved in the development of a new microcomputer back in the '70s echoed in my mind as I read this book. Written by Tracy Kidder, it was a brilliantly balanced combination of the technical and the human, operating in the corporate world. The balance was just sufficiently technical to keep the interest of geeks, without losing the common reader, whilst the human and corporate elements were juicy and intriguing enough to appeal to all. Similarly, the Rise of the Machines by Thomas Rid manages to pull off the same trick as it takes us through the increasingly rapid development of machines in our world. Starting slow with early control systems, then moving into the world of cybernetics, passing through automation, before getting to the melding of human and organic, and thence to the role and risks for society. It can't be missed that much of the development has been driven by the irrepressible drive by governments to build more and more powerful defense (and, therefore, attack) systems. But even more fundamental, as Rid points out, is the desire to control our environment, the very opposite of nature's tendency to increase entropy. For those who have been around a while, there are many recognizable names in the tale: Ross Ashby for cybernetics, Bell for modems (modulator-demodulator terminals), Karel Capek for the word "robot", Licklider writing to ARPA colleagues searching for a name for the early computer network, Kraus for the term computer virus, Brand's innovative Whole Earth Review that Steve Jobs was so impressed by, Gibson for his fiction, and so many more. It can be a heavy read in places, but it's never not fascinating. It is a constant reminder that we need our philosophers thinking about how to absorb increasingly sophisticated machines into our society, as much as we need the technologists to pursue the, as yet, unimagined spaces that machines will fill.
October 11, 2016
A comprehensive and yet, terrifying book on cybernetics, the relationship between man and his machines. Rid is a consummate expert but writes a comprehensive and readable book on computers in our society today. When you read the chapters on Moonlight Maze, you will be terrified.
November 16, 2019
Very well documented, very well organised, very clearly presented, very educative, very necessary. Highly recommended.
Read
May 25, 2018The major disruptions in our modern society all belong to one big story. A common theme connects war machines, computer networks, social media, ubiquitous surveillance and virtual reality. For 50 years or more the same people and the same ideas weave through these innovations united by the term cyber, as in cyberspace and cybernetics. Read this amazing history and you'll go: aha!
Kevin Kelly, Founder of Wired Magazine, Author of What Technology Wants and The Inevitable
Rise of the Machines is strikingly original, compellingly written and deeply topical. It is a guide to our hopes and fears of robotics and computers. Thomas Rid weaves together technological innovation, social change and popular culture in a way that is both surprising and approachable.
Gordon Corera, BBC Security Correspondent and Author of Intercept
Rise of The Machines isn’t just an insightful history of Cybernetics, but also a fascinating journey with the 20th century thinkers — from tech giants and eccentric mathematicians to science fiction writers and counterculture gurus — who have shaped how we understand machines and ourselves.
P.W. Singer, Author of Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know and Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War
Thomas Rid has provided a gripping account of how after the Second World War, cybernetics, a theory of machines, came to incite anarchy and war half a century later. Thanks to his extensive research we can now read for the first time the real story of Moonlight Maze, the first big state-on-state cyber attack, setting a new narrative standard for historians and journalists alike.
Sir David Omand, Director of GCHQ During Moonlight Maze, Former UK Security and intelligence Coordinator
Everyone I know should read this book. It will be a classic.
Robert Lee, Former US Air Force Cyber Warfare Operations Officer, author of Scada and Me
Rise of the Machines is a fascinating history of cybernetics, and of the visionaries like Norbert Wiener who first imagined the potential — and peril — of machines that would begin to replicate the capabilities of the human mind. The ongoing story of our relationship with information technology has unfolded in often surprising ways — and its culmination may shape the future in ways that we can scarcely imagine.
Martin Ford, Author of Rise of the Robots
Sometimes the most important things are hiding in plain sight. At least that's what I concluded from Rise of the Machines, Thomas Rid's masterful blending of the art of a storyteller, the discipline of an historian and the sensitivity of a philosopher. Rise of the Machines unmasks how really disruptive this “cyber thing” has been and will continue to be to nearly all aspects of human experience. It's more than food for thought. It's a banquet.
Michael Hayden, Former Director of the NSA and the CIA
Technology at once defines and exceeds our hopes for the future; it transforms and escapes us. As Thomas Rid makes clear, we live in a world riddled with technological mythologies; where our relationships both with and through machines mould not only daily experience, but our collective unconscious. There can be few finer guides to the geographies of human fear and dreaming within our machine age.
Tom Chatfield, Author of Live This Book
Fascinating … An ingenious look at how brilliant and not-so-brilliant thinkers see — usually wrongly but with occasional prescience — the increasingly intimate melding of machines and humans.
Kirkus Starred Review
Powerful … Thomas Rid is the ideal guide to the recent past shaping our future.
Esquire
Thoughtful, enlightening … a mélange of history, media studies, political science, military engineering and, yes, etymology … A meticulous yet startling alternate history of computation.
Bruce Sterling, New Scientist
Deftly recounts the hope, hype and fears that have accompanied our thinking on automation … Fascinating.
Financial Times
A fascinating survey of the oscillating hopes and fears expressed by the cybernetic mythos.
The Wall Street Journal
Thomas Rid aims to reconnect “cyber” to its original idea of man-machine symbiosis … Absorbing.
John Naughton, The Observer
Rid guides us expertly from an eccentric mathematician’s idea to the advanced cyber world we live in today.
How It Works
Kevin Kelly, Founder of Wired Magazine, Author of What Technology Wants and The Inevitable
Rise of the Machines is strikingly original, compellingly written and deeply topical. It is a guide to our hopes and fears of robotics and computers. Thomas Rid weaves together technological innovation, social change and popular culture in a way that is both surprising and approachable.
Gordon Corera, BBC Security Correspondent and Author of Intercept
Rise of The Machines isn’t just an insightful history of Cybernetics, but also a fascinating journey with the 20th century thinkers — from tech giants and eccentric mathematicians to science fiction writers and counterculture gurus — who have shaped how we understand machines and ourselves.
P.W. Singer, Author of Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know and Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War
Thomas Rid has provided a gripping account of how after the Second World War, cybernetics, a theory of machines, came to incite anarchy and war half a century later. Thanks to his extensive research we can now read for the first time the real story of Moonlight Maze, the first big state-on-state cyber attack, setting a new narrative standard for historians and journalists alike.
Sir David Omand, Director of GCHQ During Moonlight Maze, Former UK Security and intelligence Coordinator
Everyone I know should read this book. It will be a classic.
Robert Lee, Former US Air Force Cyber Warfare Operations Officer, author of Scada and Me
Rise of the Machines is a fascinating history of cybernetics, and of the visionaries like Norbert Wiener who first imagined the potential — and peril — of machines that would begin to replicate the capabilities of the human mind. The ongoing story of our relationship with information technology has unfolded in often surprising ways — and its culmination may shape the future in ways that we can scarcely imagine.
Martin Ford, Author of Rise of the Robots
Sometimes the most important things are hiding in plain sight. At least that's what I concluded from Rise of the Machines, Thomas Rid's masterful blending of the art of a storyteller, the discipline of an historian and the sensitivity of a philosopher. Rise of the Machines unmasks how really disruptive this “cyber thing” has been and will continue to be to nearly all aspects of human experience. It's more than food for thought. It's a banquet.
Michael Hayden, Former Director of the NSA and the CIA
Technology at once defines and exceeds our hopes for the future; it transforms and escapes us. As Thomas Rid makes clear, we live in a world riddled with technological mythologies; where our relationships both with and through machines mould not only daily experience, but our collective unconscious. There can be few finer guides to the geographies of human fear and dreaming within our machine age.
Tom Chatfield, Author of Live This Book
Fascinating … An ingenious look at how brilliant and not-so-brilliant thinkers see — usually wrongly but with occasional prescience — the increasingly intimate melding of machines and humans.
Kirkus Starred Review
Powerful … Thomas Rid is the ideal guide to the recent past shaping our future.
Esquire
Thoughtful, enlightening … a mélange of history, media studies, political science, military engineering and, yes, etymology … A meticulous yet startling alternate history of computation.
Bruce Sterling, New Scientist
Deftly recounts the hope, hype and fears that have accompanied our thinking on automation … Fascinating.
Financial Times
A fascinating survey of the oscillating hopes and fears expressed by the cybernetic mythos.
The Wall Street Journal
Thomas Rid aims to reconnect “cyber” to its original idea of man-machine symbiosis … Absorbing.
John Naughton, The Observer
Rid guides us expertly from an eccentric mathematician’s idea to the advanced cyber world we live in today.
How It Works
April 3, 2024
4.75 stars
July 22, 2017
Rise of the Machines: the lost history of cybernetics by Thomas Rid is still sort of thesis research for me, given my focus on cyberspace. However, as I am not using cybernetic theory as a foundation of my research, this was sort of just fun reading for me as well. I’m not sure how other scholars feel about their research, but I find that the more time I spend in academia, the closer my personal interests align with my professional ones.
Cybernetics is sort of a pet interest of mine; my mentor, a former professor of mine, did some work on how cybernetic theory relates to the counterintelligence discipline some years ago, and I would actually like to follow him down that path one day; one day! It would be a little too much to take on right now, but he has given me permission to run with his fledgling ideas and move them forward one day. That’s a heavy weight to bear from a senior academic, but it is one I will bear with pride. That was one of the overriding reasons for me to pick up this book, though now that I have finished reading it I am really glad that I did.
Thomas Rid is an excellent writer, and an amazing researcher. Seriously, I can only hope to one day reach the sort of focus, determination, and sheer quantity of quality research that goes into his publications (he also wrote Cyber War Will Not Take Place). This book is no different. It is history presented by era, notable ideas or events, and notable figures in those times periods. More impressively is the way all of this has been woven together, later sections referencing earlier ones and building the foundation for subsequent chapters.
My initial understanding of cybernetics (from my mentor, years ago), was based on the Greek root term which meant ‘to steer’.[1] Rid talks about the origins of the term ‘cyber’ throughout the books, and the many ways in which it has been used throughout the last seven or so decades. Cybernetics, essentially, is the science (or philosophy) of feedback; in terms of intelligence or counterintelligence, where I first came across the term, feedback is an utterly essential part of the process. Indeed, feedback is essential to getting anywhere in life. Feedback is ubiquitous, and ubiquitously utilized: feedback on what you see affects the instructions your brain gives your body about how to move around; what to pick up; if there is anything in your way. Cybernetic feedback is about (mechanical) systems, and more recently of course in inextricably entwined with the idea of cyberspace, or that virtual spaces that exists within, between, and among computing systems and networks.
I really recommend picking this book up. Obviously, if you’re a tech or security nerd, this is the book for you. Beyond that, though, this is just a generally good read and does a brilliant job of bringing occasionally complex ideas to a level everybody can understand: de-academia-ing, if you will, ideas that have and do affect pretty much everybody.
5 star read, people.
Cybernetics is sort of a pet interest of mine; my mentor, a former professor of mine, did some work on how cybernetic theory relates to the counterintelligence discipline some years ago, and I would actually like to follow him down that path one day; one day! It would be a little too much to take on right now, but he has given me permission to run with his fledgling ideas and move them forward one day. That’s a heavy weight to bear from a senior academic, but it is one I will bear with pride. That was one of the overriding reasons for me to pick up this book, though now that I have finished reading it I am really glad that I did.
Thomas Rid is an excellent writer, and an amazing researcher. Seriously, I can only hope to one day reach the sort of focus, determination, and sheer quantity of quality research that goes into his publications (he also wrote Cyber War Will Not Take Place). This book is no different. It is history presented by era, notable ideas or events, and notable figures in those times periods. More impressively is the way all of this has been woven together, later sections referencing earlier ones and building the foundation for subsequent chapters.
My initial understanding of cybernetics (from my mentor, years ago), was based on the Greek root term which meant ‘to steer’.[1] Rid talks about the origins of the term ‘cyber’ throughout the books, and the many ways in which it has been used throughout the last seven or so decades. Cybernetics, essentially, is the science (or philosophy) of feedback; in terms of intelligence or counterintelligence, where I first came across the term, feedback is an utterly essential part of the process. Indeed, feedback is essential to getting anywhere in life. Feedback is ubiquitous, and ubiquitously utilized: feedback on what you see affects the instructions your brain gives your body about how to move around; what to pick up; if there is anything in your way. Cybernetic feedback is about (mechanical) systems, and more recently of course in inextricably entwined with the idea of cyberspace, or that virtual spaces that exists within, between, and among computing systems and networks.
I really recommend picking this book up. Obviously, if you’re a tech or security nerd, this is the book for you. Beyond that, though, this is just a generally good read and does a brilliant job of bringing occasionally complex ideas to a level everybody can understand: de-academia-ing, if you will, ideas that have and do affect pretty much everybody.
5 star read, people.
February 21, 2018
If you've ever wondered why/how people use the term "cyber" then this book is for you. It tells the story of cybernetics in warfare (1940-1950), techo-utopianism (1960-1970s), cyberspace (1980s-) cryptography (1990s-) and cyberwarfare (2000s-). There is an attention to historical detail in Rid's prose which is really fun to read (or listen to, I listened to the audiobook on my commute). I particularly enjoyed learning more about Gregory Bateson's significance in the history of cybernetics ... and how his work fit into the techno-utopian visions of Steward Brand. Now I kind of want to read Fred Turner's From Counterculture to Cyberculture now to learn more about this history. A new person in the history of cybernetics who I didn't know about before this book is Ross Ashby, who was a British psychiatrist who did significant work on the role of feedback in machine & living systems that greatly influenced Bateson.
Also the (fairly) recent history of cyberwarfare in the events around Moonlight Maze was super interesting. I kind of want to look at the book to get a sense of the sources Rid used for this section, since some of the details seemed like they must have been declassified. My one complaint is that this Rid largely paints a sympathetic picture of the US being on the defensive in cyberwar. To learn more about the United States as aggressor see Kaplan's Dark Territory. Increasingly it is interesting to see the "going public" of the Internet infrastructure as part of the establishment of a mechanism of control.
Maybe I missed it, but there was very little discussion of the role of cybernetics (the study of control and communication) in the infrastructures of surveillance that we are all living in today. The book went to press after the Snowden revelations, so this is kind of surprising. I also thought that the story of cypherpunks and cryptography would have led very well into a discussion of Wikileaks. But the book already had a wide scope, so perhaps widening it further would have been problematic. And maybe, I hope, Rid is working on a new book that examines these topics.
Also the (fairly) recent history of cyberwarfare in the events around Moonlight Maze was super interesting. I kind of want to look at the book to get a sense of the sources Rid used for this section, since some of the details seemed like they must have been declassified. My one complaint is that this Rid largely paints a sympathetic picture of the US being on the defensive in cyberwar. To learn more about the United States as aggressor see Kaplan's Dark Territory. Increasingly it is interesting to see the "going public" of the Internet infrastructure as part of the establishment of a mechanism of control.
Maybe I missed it, but there was very little discussion of the role of cybernetics (the study of control and communication) in the infrastructures of surveillance that we are all living in today. The book went to press after the Snowden revelations, so this is kind of surprising. I also thought that the story of cypherpunks and cryptography would have led very well into a discussion of Wikileaks. But the book already had a wide scope, so perhaps widening it further would have been problematic. And maybe, I hope, Rid is working on a new book that examines these topics.
April 14, 2023
"Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do."
The “Rise of the Machines” details the advance of technology beginning from its roots in Norbert Wiener "Cybernetics” in 1940 with its negative feedback loops and self stabilizing systems and it ends in the cyberwarfare of the late twentieth century. The journey of automation and human-machine interactions turns into battles of utopia versus dystopia while just alongside the myth born of novelists like William Gibson (Neuromancer) and Vernor Vinge (True Names) is always racing forever ahead.
Whole-systems thinking, the mechanics of magic and the blurring of the distinction between organism and environment drives the story forward in what is a page turner of a historical rendering. "Computers of the 1950's were like huge lumbering beasts and lacked speed, memory, and intelligence". But, as Rid adeptly describes it, they " had nearly unlimited metaphorical power".
We wait patiently for "Deus ex machina”, we make due with public key encryption, blind signatures and digital cash, we sit and pray "Life as an angel, on wings of desire”.
HAL: Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do."
The “Rise of the Machines” details the advance of technology beginning from its roots in Norbert Wiener "Cybernetics” in 1940 with its negative feedback loops and self stabilizing systems and it ends in the cyberwarfare of the late twentieth century. The journey of automation and human-machine interactions turns into battles of utopia versus dystopia while just alongside the myth born of novelists like William Gibson (Neuromancer) and Vernor Vinge (True Names) is always racing forever ahead.
Whole-systems thinking, the mechanics of magic and the blurring of the distinction between organism and environment drives the story forward in what is a page turner of a historical rendering. "Computers of the 1950's were like huge lumbering beasts and lacked speed, memory, and intelligence". But, as Rid adeptly describes it, they " had nearly unlimited metaphorical power".
We wait patiently for "Deus ex machina”, we make due with public key encryption, blind signatures and digital cash, we sit and pray "Life as an angel, on wings of desire”.
December 30, 2016
A very informative, very interesting book on the history of cybernetics - and the cultural movements it created. I learned a LOT from this book - everything from the first cybernetic devices through to PGP encryption. I confess I got bored at times as the book sometimes laboured over the drug-fuelled visions of Californian cyber-enthusiasts. Nevertheless, the book also hints at some of the dark sides of the "cyber-movement" that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s that seems to be affecting us today. In particular, the fact that many cyber-enthusiasts were not fans of democracy and cared little for the well being of "real" society.
While the book covers so much territory I occasionally struggled to remind myself what it is actually about, I am happy to highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know how out present understanding of "cyberspace" came about.
While the book covers so much territory I occasionally struggled to remind myself what it is actually about, I am happy to highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know how out present understanding of "cyberspace" came about.
August 19, 2016
An excellent history of the intersection of humanity and technology
It took a few days to make inroads into this book, but once the narrative got to the 70s and 80s I was staying up late to read more. The story ends up recounting a grand narrative of technological determinism, but in a way that never feels kitschy (a remarkable achievement given that the story hinges on a bunch of ancient tech). Highly recommended to anyone who has any interest in the subject.
It took a few days to make inroads into this book, but once the narrative got to the 70s and 80s I was staying up late to read more. The story ends up recounting a grand narrative of technological determinism, but in a way that never feels kitschy (a remarkable achievement given that the story hinges on a bunch of ancient tech). Highly recommended to anyone who has any interest in the subject.
February 8, 2017
This is a non technical review of the use of cybernetics and computers in certain military and control systems including virtual reality and networking. The time period is from the early days of electronic computers in the 1940's to the Internet we have today. One lesson is that neither engineers, science fiction writers or generals have accurately predicted the future, even over a 10 year future horizon.
February 28, 2019
Thomas Rid mainly writes about military and especially United States of America and its conflicts, even though he is German. His other books are called; Cyber war will not take place (2013), War 2.0: Irregular warfare in the information age (2009) with co-author Marc Hecker, War and media operations: the US Military and the press from Vietnam to Iraq (2007) and he co-edited the book Understanding counterinsurgency: Doctrine, operations, and challenges (2009) with Thomas A. Keaney. It can be seen that the author’s field of expertise is not the technology rather warfare and warfare technology. He is a political scientist writing in the field of engineering and computer sciences in this book.
The rise of the machines started with the World War II. The book explains WWII accomplishment in the computer sciences and cybernetics thoroughly. Actually, WWII and Vietnam War era’s military inventions takes so much space in the book that the scientific breakthroughs outside of warfare context are not investigated nor explained enough. Also, thoughts about cybernetics are limited to only a few thinkers in this book and the latter thinkers and their thoughts are not given. It is just as though philosophers and social scientists stopped thinking and creating new thoughts about cybernetics. Also, the singularity issue is just mentioned in the book and no further thoughts on this topic are given even thought the book which mentions that word is quoted more than once.
This book narrates the technology and the developments from the United States’ point of view. Even though there are mentions of developments in United Kingdom and some scientists from other countries, the tone used is mainly biased. It is narrated as these other countries were only participating in US’ researches and developments, but nothing else. Even when a scientific breakthrough is mentioned that is first found in UK, the example I will give is the public encryption, there are jokes made about how it was not successfully made public. In addition to that, probably because of ethical reasons and maybe because the author is German, Germany’s accomplishments in the WWII technology is not mentioned at all. Encryption has seen a peak in WWII Germany with Enigma and it took a while for allies to figure out how to encrypt these messages. In addition to that, engineering breakthroughs such as tanks and submarines are German inventions. Although the topic of mechanical engineering is not in the scope of the book, none of the scientific or computer related and cybernetic inventions and innovations by central powers are given in the book. Only mention of German inventions is the Diver (V-1 and V-2) bombs in the bombing of London, however, these inventions are not explained thoroughly, not how they worked nor who invented it. Just the reaction from the allies on this horrible bomb is mentioned in many pages.
Human-machine interaction is mentioned in the terms of human controlling machines, as machines being extensions of humans. This explanations and given examples are sufficient in the book. However, the human computer interaction and human-computerized interface interaction is not given with many examples. As I mentioned before, the latter phases of the cybernation is not given with examples, just the evaluation processes of new technologies are
given. Current position and developments after 90s are not given, just the hacking and the “fall of the machines” through hacking and loss of privacy is mentioned.
There were some clichés present in the book that are mainly important to explain the cybernetic systems such as artificial limbs. However, while there was a lot of explanation, pages of memories of warfare experts do take place in the book, health and welfare appliances are not mentioned at all nor given any examples in the figures section in the middle of the book. The clichés were the only explanation about the use in health.
Many definitions on the term cybernetics were given throughout the book. However a main problem about this is these historic definitions being in different chapters. Not being able to find a common definition for a relatively new area of science and philosophy is not a problem, however, these definitions are given like bits scattered in the pages therefore hard to follow who said what.
The author explains the life cycle of cybernetics as promise, rise and fall. Although it ends with the word fall, not an absolute end or an absolute fall is present. Fall is explained with the vulnerability of the systems, which are accessible from the net, basically all systems connected or what we now call Internet of Things or simply IoT. With IoT all objects and appliances that were not connected with each other, only connected to a power supply, are now connected to the Internet. Examples such as hacked baby cameras and security cameras are given. I was surprised not to see the huge hack scandals such as the hack of iCloud of Apple, which resulted in the Fappening scandal, with private photos of celebrities made public. Another huge attack was done to Sony’s Play Station Network (PSN) that resulted in stolen data of customers, including credit card information and home addresses. The longest explained example given in this book was the Russian cyber attacks and loss and theft of data from US Military and Governmental sources and systems. It took pages to explain that attack. This is not an important or a significant example for us ordinary people. Even the US citizens would not be so interested in this data theft and would rather read about more known or important-to-all problems such as identity theft or the vulnerability of smart home systems if these examples I mentioned before are not interesting enough.
There were some very interesting scientific thoughts in the book such as artificial plants from Edward Moore. I have also learned that US actually thought about nuclear powered aircraft and there were experimental production for this idea to come true, under the presidency of J.F. Kennedy.
There are many thoughts on cybernetics (however, as I mentioned before, not contemporary ones) in the book. There are mentions on Marshall McLuhan. I was surprised not to see his thoughts on Global Village in this book. Even though the world becoming a village with communication technologies was written in 5th chapter: Culture, McLuhan was not quoted not mentioned. And also, von Neumann’s thoughts on how to create a machine that can create others are outdated due to the changes in production techniques. It is important to give this information due to its historical importance; however, a contemporary version of it could have been given too. There are many scientists, philosophers and thinkers writing about machines creating machines, software-creating software and there are real life examples to that. The most popular method of production in this means is rapid prototyping or in other words, 3D printing. This is not
mentioned at all in this book. History of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are given in the book. However, again, no current application or product is explained in the book just as though these technologies stopped being developed. The aids for fighter pilots are still in use with more enchanted technology and the contemporary example are again not given. In addition to that, use of new interaction screens, eliminating tons of switches are mentioned as in cockpit but not in power plants or factories. It would have been a more dramatic explanation since a room of switches and buttons are narrowed down to a computer screen with the use of technology rather than explaining the whole topic with a closed space, cockpit, which did not change in size with technology.
The role of science fiction in the determination of the terms and the prediction of the future science and technologies are acknowledged in the book. Especially the writer William Gibson and his book Neuromancer (1984). The terms used in the field are sometimes from science fiction.
The word cyber is always about the future, the author tells the reader. The idea of cyber is a never-ending concept according to him. It can be about utopia or dystopia, but is always in the future. The utopia involves humans not doing repetitive work, which alienates them from work, the product and themselves. In the utopic world of robotic involvement humans will have more free time, will be free of labor and this free time will make them produce more creative mind work. Another utopian thought through cybernetics is a world with less violence. I was surprised to see that the author did not mention Minority Report, neither the book nor the 2002 movie. The story is about PreCrime system, a system that detects criminals before the crime is being committed. Even though the system depends on humans who see the future, these humans are narrated not as humans, rather as systems/machines. These machine-like creatures’ only job is that and they are used just as slaves. I think there is another tragedy in this story, which is about them.
The dystopia on the other hand will have robots and artificial intelligence (AI) systems enslaving humans. These systems will have total control on the humans. The book lacks the examples from science fiction. Only examples given on this topic are the computer/AI HAL 9000 in 2001: A space odyssey, the robot R.U.R in Karel Čapek’ s play and the sentinels in Matrix. My suggestion to enlarge the scope of this topic would be adding other examples such as Skynet in Terminator Series or an older example of dead-man’s-hand in Dr. Strangelove. Actually, I did not understand why an author who mainly writes about warfare did not write about Dr. Strangelove which is about giving control to systems and Terminator which is about giving total control and decisions of war to the artificial intelligence and the AI (which is called Skynet) deciding that the humankind is the phantom menace to the earth and starting an attack to Russia s that they attack with their own dead-man’s-hand system (which is an automatic system that attacks back in case of an attack on the county so that even when there is no one left to give the order or execute the order, the attack would still occur). Another dystopia scenario is the unemployment due to robots robbing humans’ jobs.
Machines may decide to harm humans too. It happens when the humans do not let robots live like humans or give them humans’ rights. The best example for this is given in the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick,
which is later, adapted to the movie Blade Runner. In this story, androids are used as slaves in Mars colonies and are prohibited to travel to the earth where they could have been free. This example is also not given in the book.
The most popular dystopia is about the loss of privacy. Although the book is published in 2016 the most popular example, the TV series Black Mirror is not mentioned. The loss of jobs in a dystopian future is explained with Player Piano of Kurt Vonnegut in the book. Since there are not yet many science fiction stories, novels or movies about this topic, I do think this example was sufficient.
This book explains the history of cybernetics with a biased but enough for new-to-topic readers. However, it is not possible to claim that this book itself would be enough to understand neither the cybernetics nor its complete history. It is a good start to this topic and an easy reading piece, with gossip stories here and there in the book mainly about Wiener, who may be called the father of cybernetics. In addition to this critique, as an engineer, I would like to say that this book did become boring at some points since it explains what we already know because of our education. And I also think that it lacks a good teaching and explaining method, such as diagrams that can explain the whole concept of control or the principle of feedback rather than pages of explanation. Therefore, I think these topics may be hard to follow for non-engineer readers.
The author of this book shows awareness in the tone of this book, especially in the matters of gender equality and choice of words regarding genders. It can be said that he mainly has been politically correct throughout the whole book. For example, General Electric’s exoskeletons are called Handyman and Hardiman; the author reminds the reader that the man in the names of the products comes from the word manipulator. When a term has gender bias, the author states that it is a quote, not his own words. It is understood that the author does not want to use the word man, even when it is the general use, such as the word mensch in German meaning person. However, the author did not mention any of the male scientist or the thinkers with their looks or what they wear but he described Nicole Stenger by what she wore and how she looked. Also, in Chapter 8: War, there was a description of a sexual assault to women FBI agents and while the author had ideas on many things, he did not comment on this. These, I think, were hypocrisy. In addition to all these, A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway is only mentioned in the book and the ideas were not taken seriously although the author quoted Haraway. Although, the example given from Terminator; a gender fluid cyborg, was a good and well-chosen example to understand the topic.
The parts of Chapter 5, which were about Hubbard and Scientology, were biased. The author clearly was not an admirer of the church of scientology. However, he should have not be biased about it and should have told the history as it was rather than looking down to these thinkers, since he claims it to be a history book. History should not take sides. Just mentioning Wiener’s thoughts about Hubbard and not mentioning any positive reviews on the text was not right in my opinion. In addition to that, New Age ideas on cybernetics are also made a laughing matter in this book. I do understand that the author is not a person of religion; traditional or contemporary. However, the author should have remained neutral on all matters since he wrote about the cultural history of cybernetics in this chapter. I do think the most problematic chapter is therefore the 5th chapter. Meanwhile, in the same chapter, a lot of information about Whole
Earth Catalog and its latter form, the WELL, which can be understood as the ancestors of social media and social interactions through internet. However, no mention of comments and how they actually are like today’s social media, the connection between them, are not given in the book. The author made connections such as ARPANET being the ancestor of Internet, however, he does not say much about others. Therefore, I do think author used mainly clichés and had tried not to claim too much, taking no risks.
Some citation problems were present in the book. An example is about a paper by Clynes being rejected by the publishers of Astronautics. If there were to be a citation about it or a quote by the mentioned author or the publisher, it would be credible information. However, now it looks like it’s just about gossiping.
The last chapter of the book was a summary of it. I expected more from that chapter, as I mentioned before. The summary may have been moved out of the fall of the machines chapter to keep that part clean and focused.
As a conclusion, this book was a well-written book with some problems, such as these that are mentioned in this review. This review, as any critique can, does have subjective sentences. My enthusiastic view of science fiction (sci-fi) made me expect more sci-fi examples, classics like Ray Bradbury and Stanislaw Lem or contemporary ones like TV Series Black Mirror. There were very limited examples of sci-fi; if there hadn’t been any examples at all, I would not have included the lack of important sci-fi examples to this review. The lack of present technologies and contemporary objects made it harder to follow since most of the readers would lack the interest to the objects which they did not know before the book and which did not continue to be produced. All of the objects and technologies mentioned in the book are ancestors to our day’s objects and technologies that we even use in our everyday lives, but the reader who does not have the background needed to understand that would not follow the path leading to today and to the future.
The rise of the machines started with the World War II. The book explains WWII accomplishment in the computer sciences and cybernetics thoroughly. Actually, WWII and Vietnam War era’s military inventions takes so much space in the book that the scientific breakthroughs outside of warfare context are not investigated nor explained enough. Also, thoughts about cybernetics are limited to only a few thinkers in this book and the latter thinkers and their thoughts are not given. It is just as though philosophers and social scientists stopped thinking and creating new thoughts about cybernetics. Also, the singularity issue is just mentioned in the book and no further thoughts on this topic are given even thought the book which mentions that word is quoted more than once.
This book narrates the technology and the developments from the United States’ point of view. Even though there are mentions of developments in United Kingdom and some scientists from other countries, the tone used is mainly biased. It is narrated as these other countries were only participating in US’ researches and developments, but nothing else. Even when a scientific breakthrough is mentioned that is first found in UK, the example I will give is the public encryption, there are jokes made about how it was not successfully made public. In addition to that, probably because of ethical reasons and maybe because the author is German, Germany’s accomplishments in the WWII technology is not mentioned at all. Encryption has seen a peak in WWII Germany with Enigma and it took a while for allies to figure out how to encrypt these messages. In addition to that, engineering breakthroughs such as tanks and submarines are German inventions. Although the topic of mechanical engineering is not in the scope of the book, none of the scientific or computer related and cybernetic inventions and innovations by central powers are given in the book. Only mention of German inventions is the Diver (V-1 and V-2) bombs in the bombing of London, however, these inventions are not explained thoroughly, not how they worked nor who invented it. Just the reaction from the allies on this horrible bomb is mentioned in many pages.
Human-machine interaction is mentioned in the terms of human controlling machines, as machines being extensions of humans. This explanations and given examples are sufficient in the book. However, the human computer interaction and human-computerized interface interaction is not given with many examples. As I mentioned before, the latter phases of the cybernation is not given with examples, just the evaluation processes of new technologies are
given. Current position and developments after 90s are not given, just the hacking and the “fall of the machines” through hacking and loss of privacy is mentioned.
There were some clichés present in the book that are mainly important to explain the cybernetic systems such as artificial limbs. However, while there was a lot of explanation, pages of memories of warfare experts do take place in the book, health and welfare appliances are not mentioned at all nor given any examples in the figures section in the middle of the book. The clichés were the only explanation about the use in health.
Many definitions on the term cybernetics were given throughout the book. However a main problem about this is these historic definitions being in different chapters. Not being able to find a common definition for a relatively new area of science and philosophy is not a problem, however, these definitions are given like bits scattered in the pages therefore hard to follow who said what.
The author explains the life cycle of cybernetics as promise, rise and fall. Although it ends with the word fall, not an absolute end or an absolute fall is present. Fall is explained with the vulnerability of the systems, which are accessible from the net, basically all systems connected or what we now call Internet of Things or simply IoT. With IoT all objects and appliances that were not connected with each other, only connected to a power supply, are now connected to the Internet. Examples such as hacked baby cameras and security cameras are given. I was surprised not to see the huge hack scandals such as the hack of iCloud of Apple, which resulted in the Fappening scandal, with private photos of celebrities made public. Another huge attack was done to Sony’s Play Station Network (PSN) that resulted in stolen data of customers, including credit card information and home addresses. The longest explained example given in this book was the Russian cyber attacks and loss and theft of data from US Military and Governmental sources and systems. It took pages to explain that attack. This is not an important or a significant example for us ordinary people. Even the US citizens would not be so interested in this data theft and would rather read about more known or important-to-all problems such as identity theft or the vulnerability of smart home systems if these examples I mentioned before are not interesting enough.
There were some very interesting scientific thoughts in the book such as artificial plants from Edward Moore. I have also learned that US actually thought about nuclear powered aircraft and there were experimental production for this idea to come true, under the presidency of J.F. Kennedy.
There are many thoughts on cybernetics (however, as I mentioned before, not contemporary ones) in the book. There are mentions on Marshall McLuhan. I was surprised not to see his thoughts on Global Village in this book. Even though the world becoming a village with communication technologies was written in 5th chapter: Culture, McLuhan was not quoted not mentioned. And also, von Neumann’s thoughts on how to create a machine that can create others are outdated due to the changes in production techniques. It is important to give this information due to its historical importance; however, a contemporary version of it could have been given too. There are many scientists, philosophers and thinkers writing about machines creating machines, software-creating software and there are real life examples to that. The most popular method of production in this means is rapid prototyping or in other words, 3D printing. This is not
mentioned at all in this book. History of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) are given in the book. However, again, no current application or product is explained in the book just as though these technologies stopped being developed. The aids for fighter pilots are still in use with more enchanted technology and the contemporary example are again not given. In addition to that, use of new interaction screens, eliminating tons of switches are mentioned as in cockpit but not in power plants or factories. It would have been a more dramatic explanation since a room of switches and buttons are narrowed down to a computer screen with the use of technology rather than explaining the whole topic with a closed space, cockpit, which did not change in size with technology.
The role of science fiction in the determination of the terms and the prediction of the future science and technologies are acknowledged in the book. Especially the writer William Gibson and his book Neuromancer (1984). The terms used in the field are sometimes from science fiction.
The word cyber is always about the future, the author tells the reader. The idea of cyber is a never-ending concept according to him. It can be about utopia or dystopia, but is always in the future. The utopia involves humans not doing repetitive work, which alienates them from work, the product and themselves. In the utopic world of robotic involvement humans will have more free time, will be free of labor and this free time will make them produce more creative mind work. Another utopian thought through cybernetics is a world with less violence. I was surprised to see that the author did not mention Minority Report, neither the book nor the 2002 movie. The story is about PreCrime system, a system that detects criminals before the crime is being committed. Even though the system depends on humans who see the future, these humans are narrated not as humans, rather as systems/machines. These machine-like creatures’ only job is that and they are used just as slaves. I think there is another tragedy in this story, which is about them.
The dystopia on the other hand will have robots and artificial intelligence (AI) systems enslaving humans. These systems will have total control on the humans. The book lacks the examples from science fiction. Only examples given on this topic are the computer/AI HAL 9000 in 2001: A space odyssey, the robot R.U.R in Karel Čapek’ s play and the sentinels in Matrix. My suggestion to enlarge the scope of this topic would be adding other examples such as Skynet in Terminator Series or an older example of dead-man’s-hand in Dr. Strangelove. Actually, I did not understand why an author who mainly writes about warfare did not write about Dr. Strangelove which is about giving control to systems and Terminator which is about giving total control and decisions of war to the artificial intelligence and the AI (which is called Skynet) deciding that the humankind is the phantom menace to the earth and starting an attack to Russia s that they attack with their own dead-man’s-hand system (which is an automatic system that attacks back in case of an attack on the county so that even when there is no one left to give the order or execute the order, the attack would still occur). Another dystopia scenario is the unemployment due to robots robbing humans’ jobs.
Machines may decide to harm humans too. It happens when the humans do not let robots live like humans or give them humans’ rights. The best example for this is given in the book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick,
which is later, adapted to the movie Blade Runner. In this story, androids are used as slaves in Mars colonies and are prohibited to travel to the earth where they could have been free. This example is also not given in the book.
The most popular dystopia is about the loss of privacy. Although the book is published in 2016 the most popular example, the TV series Black Mirror is not mentioned. The loss of jobs in a dystopian future is explained with Player Piano of Kurt Vonnegut in the book. Since there are not yet many science fiction stories, novels or movies about this topic, I do think this example was sufficient.
This book explains the history of cybernetics with a biased but enough for new-to-topic readers. However, it is not possible to claim that this book itself would be enough to understand neither the cybernetics nor its complete history. It is a good start to this topic and an easy reading piece, with gossip stories here and there in the book mainly about Wiener, who may be called the father of cybernetics. In addition to this critique, as an engineer, I would like to say that this book did become boring at some points since it explains what we already know because of our education. And I also think that it lacks a good teaching and explaining method, such as diagrams that can explain the whole concept of control or the principle of feedback rather than pages of explanation. Therefore, I think these topics may be hard to follow for non-engineer readers.
The author of this book shows awareness in the tone of this book, especially in the matters of gender equality and choice of words regarding genders. It can be said that he mainly has been politically correct throughout the whole book. For example, General Electric’s exoskeletons are called Handyman and Hardiman; the author reminds the reader that the man in the names of the products comes from the word manipulator. When a term has gender bias, the author states that it is a quote, not his own words. It is understood that the author does not want to use the word man, even when it is the general use, such as the word mensch in German meaning person. However, the author did not mention any of the male scientist or the thinkers with their looks or what they wear but he described Nicole Stenger by what she wore and how she looked. Also, in Chapter 8: War, there was a description of a sexual assault to women FBI agents and while the author had ideas on many things, he did not comment on this. These, I think, were hypocrisy. In addition to all these, A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway is only mentioned in the book and the ideas were not taken seriously although the author quoted Haraway. Although, the example given from Terminator; a gender fluid cyborg, was a good and well-chosen example to understand the topic.
The parts of Chapter 5, which were about Hubbard and Scientology, were biased. The author clearly was not an admirer of the church of scientology. However, he should have not be biased about it and should have told the history as it was rather than looking down to these thinkers, since he claims it to be a history book. History should not take sides. Just mentioning Wiener’s thoughts about Hubbard and not mentioning any positive reviews on the text was not right in my opinion. In addition to that, New Age ideas on cybernetics are also made a laughing matter in this book. I do understand that the author is not a person of religion; traditional or contemporary. However, the author should have remained neutral on all matters since he wrote about the cultural history of cybernetics in this chapter. I do think the most problematic chapter is therefore the 5th chapter. Meanwhile, in the same chapter, a lot of information about Whole
Earth Catalog and its latter form, the WELL, which can be understood as the ancestors of social media and social interactions through internet. However, no mention of comments and how they actually are like today’s social media, the connection between them, are not given in the book. The author made connections such as ARPANET being the ancestor of Internet, however, he does not say much about others. Therefore, I do think author used mainly clichés and had tried not to claim too much, taking no risks.
Some citation problems were present in the book. An example is about a paper by Clynes being rejected by the publishers of Astronautics. If there were to be a citation about it or a quote by the mentioned author or the publisher, it would be credible information. However, now it looks like it’s just about gossiping.
The last chapter of the book was a summary of it. I expected more from that chapter, as I mentioned before. The summary may have been moved out of the fall of the machines chapter to keep that part clean and focused.
As a conclusion, this book was a well-written book with some problems, such as these that are mentioned in this review. This review, as any critique can, does have subjective sentences. My enthusiastic view of science fiction (sci-fi) made me expect more sci-fi examples, classics like Ray Bradbury and Stanislaw Lem or contemporary ones like TV Series Black Mirror. There were very limited examples of sci-fi; if there hadn’t been any examples at all, I would not have included the lack of important sci-fi examples to this review. The lack of present technologies and contemporary objects made it harder to follow since most of the readers would lack the interest to the objects which they did not know before the book and which did not continue to be produced. All of the objects and technologies mentioned in the book are ancestors to our day’s objects and technologies that we even use in our everyday lives, but the reader who does not have the background needed to understand that would not follow the path leading to today and to the future.
December 25, 2019
If "cybernatics" is replaced by "AI", and some of the anecdotes changed, "Rise of the Machines" will read like how AI evolved and presently hit its peak cycle. V-1 was the first unmanned aircraft from Germany. To save London, scientists integrated machines, controls and responses. Necessary speed in reaction needed humans out of the control loop - a recurring theme of the book. It is fascinating to see how majority of the computing revolution - Computer itself, User Interfaces including virtual reality, automation, internet, anthropomorphic robots, encryption and resulting crypto-universe etc. are direct effects of the war and following shifts in paradigm and power.
Some insights -
* Never, never must an army entrust its lines of communication to civilians.
* L Ron Hubbard's Dianetics borrowed heavily from Cybernatic. Dianetics is built on the GIGO principle (Garbage In, Garbage Out) and treated biological system the same as computing one. It posited every flaw in us is because of a bad input and tried to fix the input "problem".
* Cybernatic itself borrows from the same root as "Kubernetes" (back again these days!) - steersman.
* The early calculations to ward off V-1 had a critical flow - expected uniformity.
* Feedback is what nudges actual performance to expected performance.
* Spotting a high flying plane on radar is simple, low-flying one is hard because of "ground chatter".
* Wiener added a spiritual angle to cybernatics - "the machine created a machine in its own image". Religion needs taboo - Wiener chose "purpose" of the machines as taboo.
* "Dependence on a human decision maker in our present military environment is hazardous"
* The world was much worried about automation in the 60s. President Kennedy was asked about resulting structural unemployment soon after his inauguration!
* ENIAC could calculate faster than instructions could be read into the machine.
* von Neumann deeply thought about "machine reproducing machines" problem. He posited the machine needed eight parts - Biblical number.
* Licklider usurped the cybernatic "man aiding the machine" by " true man-computer symbiosis" principle, that he believed is superior to automation.
* The first ever social network - WELL, Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link - was created by Stewart Brand. It had people's real names and its principle was YOYOW - "You own your own words" (think of this as "no-one can retweet you")
* Cockpits displayed more data to the pilot that a human could process, and did so on tiny displays. Operators complained that their brains would "ooze out of their fingertips"!
* First-wave hackers argued "if a system is dumb enough to be open, it is your moral duty to violate it".
* "You're not a cyberpunk
* Cyberspace in 80s was like 19th century west - vast, unmapped, culturally and legally ambiguous, verbally terse, hard to get around...and very few women.
* "Numbers can be a better form of cash than paper" was the first ever crypto-cash paper in 1983. Chaum, its author, feared invisible mass surveillance would be inevitable, "perhaps irreversible".
* Libertarian crypto advocates borrowed heavily from 2nd amendment -- crypto == guns! "if crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will have crypto". Berkeley academics were the "NRA types".
* Wars could be won immediately, what really mattered was winning the first battle"
* Every technology cycle has three stages - promise, rise and fall. 50s began the pattern with primitive computers and control systems. 60s extended the story into space following Sputnik-shock. 70s had bold promises of "cybernated" economies - merger of cybernatics and automation. In the 80s, virtual reality was the next big thing - promising access to new frontier called "cyberspace".
* We don't always get the future wrong. But almost always get the speed, the scale and the shape wrong.
* The first wave of cybernatics - like any new technology - started with analogy with an existing thing, humans. Switches corresponded to synapses, wires to nerves, networks to nervous systems, sensors to eyes and ears, actuators to muscles. As these tools become industrial machines, ambitions rise to create an independent "life form" - shadow of ourselves - machines of "loving grace". Looking back, the success of cybernatics was to replace magic with science. Machines were not powered by Jewish magic (Golem), Greek gods (Hephaestus) or English alchemy (Frankenstein). They were powered by "negative feedback". It made machines mainstream.
The second wave flipped this presumption - it started thinking of humans in machine terms. The goal was not any longer to create more powerful machines that resemble us, but to "re-create" humans in the machine's image. To enhance life (e.g., cyborg).
The third wave broadened machine-human mapping from one-to-one to many-to-many. It invented networks.
The patterns exhibited by cybernatics are the same exhibited by AI over past four decades - Spiritual (machine becomes an idol), Contradiction (perennial tension - will be be good or bad), Technology (creates new sub-domains - e.g., GANs), New Terms/Phrases are introduced (driverless), and Irony.
In the mind-map of technology history, this book is a must-read to discover the line from the circle named "war" to the central shape of "today's technology".
Some insights -
* Never, never must an army entrust its lines of communication to civilians.
* L Ron Hubbard's Dianetics borrowed heavily from Cybernatic. Dianetics is built on the GIGO principle (Garbage In, Garbage Out) and treated biological system the same as computing one. It posited every flaw in us is because of a bad input and tried to fix the input "problem".
* Cybernatic itself borrows from the same root as "Kubernetes" (back again these days!) - steersman.
* The early calculations to ward off V-1 had a critical flow - expected uniformity.
* Feedback is what nudges actual performance to expected performance.
* Spotting a high flying plane on radar is simple, low-flying one is hard because of "ground chatter".
* Wiener added a spiritual angle to cybernatics - "the machine created a machine in its own image". Religion needs taboo - Wiener chose "purpose" of the machines as taboo.
* "Dependence on a human decision maker in our present military environment is hazardous"
* The world was much worried about automation in the 60s. President Kennedy was asked about resulting structural unemployment soon after his inauguration!
* ENIAC could calculate faster than instructions could be read into the machine.
* von Neumann deeply thought about "machine reproducing machines" problem. He posited the machine needed eight parts - Biblical number.
* Licklider usurped the cybernatic "man aiding the machine" by " true man-computer symbiosis" principle, that he believed is superior to automation.
* The first ever social network - WELL, Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link - was created by Stewart Brand. It had people's real names and its principle was YOYOW - "You own your own words" (think of this as "no-one can retweet you")
* Cockpits displayed more data to the pilot that a human could process, and did so on tiny displays. Operators complained that their brains would "ooze out of their fingertips"!
* First-wave hackers argued "if a system is dumb enough to be open, it is your moral duty to violate it".
* "You're not a cyberpunk
* Cyberspace in 80s was like 19th century west - vast, unmapped, culturally and legally ambiguous, verbally terse, hard to get around...and very few women.
* "Numbers can be a better form of cash than paper" was the first ever crypto-cash paper in 1983. Chaum, its author, feared invisible mass surveillance would be inevitable, "perhaps irreversible".
* Libertarian crypto advocates borrowed heavily from 2nd amendment -- crypto == guns! "if crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will have crypto". Berkeley academics were the "NRA types".
* Wars could be won immediately, what really mattered was winning the first battle"
* Every technology cycle has three stages - promise, rise and fall. 50s began the pattern with primitive computers and control systems. 60s extended the story into space following Sputnik-shock. 70s had bold promises of "cybernated" economies - merger of cybernatics and automation. In the 80s, virtual reality was the next big thing - promising access to new frontier called "cyberspace".
* We don't always get the future wrong. But almost always get the speed, the scale and the shape wrong.
* The first wave of cybernatics - like any new technology - started with analogy with an existing thing, humans. Switches corresponded to synapses, wires to nerves, networks to nervous systems, sensors to eyes and ears, actuators to muscles. As these tools become industrial machines, ambitions rise to create an independent "life form" - shadow of ourselves - machines of "loving grace". Looking back, the success of cybernatics was to replace magic with science. Machines were not powered by Jewish magic (Golem), Greek gods (Hephaestus) or English alchemy (Frankenstein). They were powered by "negative feedback". It made machines mainstream.
The second wave flipped this presumption - it started thinking of humans in machine terms. The goal was not any longer to create more powerful machines that resemble us, but to "re-create" humans in the machine's image. To enhance life (e.g., cyborg).
The third wave broadened machine-human mapping from one-to-one to many-to-many. It invented networks.
The patterns exhibited by cybernatics are the same exhibited by AI over past four decades - Spiritual (machine becomes an idol), Contradiction (perennial tension - will be be good or bad), Technology (creates new sub-domains - e.g., GANs), New Terms/Phrases are introduced (driverless), and Irony.
In the mind-map of technology history, this book is a must-read to discover the line from the circle named "war" to the central shape of "today's technology".
January 18, 2020
Rise of the Machines is a breezy history of cybernetics, the paradigm-changing field of scientific enquiry that was created out of the technological needs of World War II and vanished soon after; inexplicably to those of us who came of age toward the end of the cold war. Thomas Rid deftly walks us through the story of how the field was not really a new field at all, but rather a new way of understanding phenomena that were parts of many diverse fields that already existed. Once the scientists had incorporated the new understanding, they simply went back to work within the fields that already existed. The new way of looking at things, though, did not vanish but actually flourished in the popular imagination long after the scientists had dispensed with they hype. See Chaos Theory in the 90s for a more recent example of the phenomenon.
The story begins with the increasing use of instrumentation in aircraft, especially fighter craft, and the creation of automation when those instruments were tied to the plane’s controls. The deeply human concern of being replaced by automation arises here and has, if anything, continually increased right up to the present day. But technology was large and cumbersome in the 40s and although it was smart enough to pilot an ICBM, it could not replace human pilots for most jobs and so the focus was on augmenting human skills with automation.
Norbert Weiner, an MIT mathematician, founded the field of cybernetics as a new type of science in which measurement and control actuators were combined to carry out a function. Basically, it was just the study of negative feedback in systems with a view to stability in the face of perturbations and the effects of time delays in dynamical systems. The field was greatly hyped in the 50s but then more-or-less transitioned into systems theory or systems engineering. Without any academic departments of cybernetics (or systems theory), this multidisciplinary field was doomed to obscurity within the scientific establishment. Jeff Golblum’s “chaotician” from Jurassic Park is kin to the “cyberneticists of the 50s.
Though the scientists had kept the results but discarded the discipline, popular culture was just getting started. A new way of seeing the world is what culture is all about, and since when does an evangelist worry about being replaced by automation? The Whole Earth people and the psychedelic gurus loved the idea of cyberspace; an alternative reality where the foulness of historical inertia could be swept aside for a new reality where individuals could live free. The counterculture took the viewpoint of cybernetics and ran with it, developing virtual reality sensory gear and simulated realities in cyberspace, while also creating libertarian hellholes of anonymity where everyone could pretend to be a sociopathic dictator (evidently this is freedom, in their minds).
The military, of course, had never abandoned cybernetics; they just called it automation. With the capture of civil society by encroaching automation, however, the military realized a new opportunity to extend their social power. By taking control of the machines that everyone depended on for daily life, they could take control of the people. Cyberwar became a thing. Here Rid is exemplary, describing the Moonlight Maze investigation of the late 90s; an apparently Russian operation that brought the resources of a nation state to the business of mapping and understanding the computational liabilities of the United States. Military leaders seemed to think that the only way they could get the public to turn over enough of their civil liberties to combat such threats was to shock them with a digital Pearl Harbour. Of course there was never going to be a digital Pearl Harbour, that stuff is all stealth and invisibility. So they prepared all the draconian legislation that they thought they needed and, wondrous good fortune, were delivered a terrorist Pearl Harbour at just the time they needed it and so were able to implement a planet-wide surveillance network. In an ironic twist, it turned out that corporations could get even better surveillance just by giving away technological gadgets. The present, however, cannot be seen clearly, so who knows where it leads. To understand the history of cyber-stuff, Rid’s book is really very good. If you’re looking for cybernetic details, like Ashby’s law of requisite variety, this is not the place to find it. Instead, you will find a much richer story than that of cybernetics as a scientific discipline. A timely and important story, too.
The story begins with the increasing use of instrumentation in aircraft, especially fighter craft, and the creation of automation when those instruments were tied to the plane’s controls. The deeply human concern of being replaced by automation arises here and has, if anything, continually increased right up to the present day. But technology was large and cumbersome in the 40s and although it was smart enough to pilot an ICBM, it could not replace human pilots for most jobs and so the focus was on augmenting human skills with automation.
Norbert Weiner, an MIT mathematician, founded the field of cybernetics as a new type of science in which measurement and control actuators were combined to carry out a function. Basically, it was just the study of negative feedback in systems with a view to stability in the face of perturbations and the effects of time delays in dynamical systems. The field was greatly hyped in the 50s but then more-or-less transitioned into systems theory or systems engineering. Without any academic departments of cybernetics (or systems theory), this multidisciplinary field was doomed to obscurity within the scientific establishment. Jeff Golblum’s “chaotician” from Jurassic Park is kin to the “cyberneticists of the 50s.
Though the scientists had kept the results but discarded the discipline, popular culture was just getting started. A new way of seeing the world is what culture is all about, and since when does an evangelist worry about being replaced by automation? The Whole Earth people and the psychedelic gurus loved the idea of cyberspace; an alternative reality where the foulness of historical inertia could be swept aside for a new reality where individuals could live free. The counterculture took the viewpoint of cybernetics and ran with it, developing virtual reality sensory gear and simulated realities in cyberspace, while also creating libertarian hellholes of anonymity where everyone could pretend to be a sociopathic dictator (evidently this is freedom, in their minds).
The military, of course, had never abandoned cybernetics; they just called it automation. With the capture of civil society by encroaching automation, however, the military realized a new opportunity to extend their social power. By taking control of the machines that everyone depended on for daily life, they could take control of the people. Cyberwar became a thing. Here Rid is exemplary, describing the Moonlight Maze investigation of the late 90s; an apparently Russian operation that brought the resources of a nation state to the business of mapping and understanding the computational liabilities of the United States. Military leaders seemed to think that the only way they could get the public to turn over enough of their civil liberties to combat such threats was to shock them with a digital Pearl Harbour. Of course there was never going to be a digital Pearl Harbour, that stuff is all stealth and invisibility. So they prepared all the draconian legislation that they thought they needed and, wondrous good fortune, were delivered a terrorist Pearl Harbour at just the time they needed it and so were able to implement a planet-wide surveillance network. In an ironic twist, it turned out that corporations could get even better surveillance just by giving away technological gadgets. The present, however, cannot be seen clearly, so who knows where it leads. To understand the history of cyber-stuff, Rid’s book is really very good. If you’re looking for cybernetic details, like Ashby’s law of requisite variety, this is not the place to find it. Instead, you will find a much richer story than that of cybernetics as a scientific discipline. A timely and important story, too.
December 20, 2023
Thomas Rid's "Rise of the Machines" is an essential intellectual history of the technological, cultural, and political ideas comprising the early 21st-century-era concept of "cyberspace." Told primarily through a US-lens, 'Rise' explains how Norbert Weiner's early ideas about how to automate control systems for weapons systems led to the emergence of the internet, cyberspace as a digital-social enclave and cultural idea, and in the ultimate irony, cyberwarfare. Eid's narrative focuses heavily on characters in academia, the military, and the early digital counter-culture. As a result, it strangely leaves in the background the corporations and entrepreneurs responsible for developing and promulgating key "cyber" technologies and tech culture. Also, disappointing is the lack of discussion of early (90s and 00s-era) thinkers about digital social media and its pros and cons. However, Rid's main purpose is really just to deconstruct cyberspace as a national security concept so such omissions are forgivable. Recognizing this is not a general history of computing or the internet, "Rise of the Machines" nonetheless feels like an important explanation of the lineage of a place we all inhabit now.
October 26, 2018
A fascinating and sweeping look at different eras of "cybernetic" technologies, ranging from robotics to virtual reality to data theft, and analyzing these technologies through multiple lenses -- technical, political, philosophical. The most interesting chapters were the first several ones, on the origins of the philosophy of feedback control and automation, and the adventures of the early engineers and scientists. It was also very interesting to read about the spread of cybernetic thinking to other fields, like biology and politics.
However it did seem like the book had to make some stretches later on, when it tried to connect later developments, like the rise of virtual reality, "cypher-punk" culture, and cyberwars, to the overall theme of feedback and cybernetics. They were interesting chapters, but it wasn't clear that they tied all that well to the framework of cybernetics, and felt very different than the earlier chapters.
However it did seem like the book had to make some stretches later on, when it tried to connect later developments, like the rise of virtual reality, "cypher-punk" culture, and cyberwars, to the overall theme of feedback and cybernetics. They were interesting chapters, but it wasn't clear that they tied all that well to the framework of cybernetics, and felt very different than the earlier chapters.
December 24, 2019
Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History by Thomas Rid is not a book I feel like I know enough about to judge, which puts me in an interesting part. I found substantial portions of the text bizarre, and often times I felt like the case selection for discussing the book was a bit chaotic. The book possesses linearity, theme, and volumes of examples, but I'm not sure it has coherence. The chapters do, but the book? At times it feels like a collection of essays that follow a chronological principle and occasionally reference each other, but the whole doesn't really come together. That's not to say the book doesn't have great moments, it does. Nor does it mean that the book is not filled with information, it is. You will learn from this book. It just feels like you need some guidance on how to understand the discipline it examines first, before you can really get into it at a deeper level.
88/100
88/100
November 1, 2018
I heard the author speak about voting issues in the machine age and decided to read this book. It's very interesting. The theme lies around where "cyber" came from. William Gibson popularized cyberspace but the prefix was in use long before then. Norbert Wiener used it for cybernetics. He sees three eras:
* Thinking about machines in human terms. Then magic was replaced by science.
* Thinking about humans in mechanical terms. Consider cyborgs as well.
* Thinking about the space inside the machines - cyber space
The book starts in a scientific vein, reviewing developments in World War 2 and the Cold War. The focus and tone shifts in the second half to the people in San Francisco, who were counterculturalists but also interested in this field. He discusses the roles of Stewart Brand (of Whole Earth fame) and John Perry (the Grateful Dead lyricist).
* Thinking about machines in human terms. Then magic was replaced by science.
* Thinking about humans in mechanical terms. Consider cyborgs as well.
* Thinking about the space inside the machines - cyber space
The book starts in a scientific vein, reviewing developments in World War 2 and the Cold War. The focus and tone shifts in the second half to the people in San Francisco, who were counterculturalists but also interested in this field. He discusses the roles of Stewart Brand (of Whole Earth fame) and John Perry (the Grateful Dead lyricist).
May 29, 2017
A nice history that demonstrates how literary fiction, engineering, government, and philosophy intertwine to develop the future of technology. The book probably most reads as a history of computing technology than anything else and emphasizes the governments role (and resistance) perhaps a bit too much (particularly the role of war, but the author is a professor of war studies). The book seems to stray a bit from the cybernetics (human-machine interaction), but does attempt to bring things full circle noting that the myth of the machine world persists even if the reality hasn't yet happened.
September 29, 2018
Plenty of references for readers to follow up with. Sadly the reader won't find any mention of Stafford Beer so I'll just add that here in case anyone wants to look up Cybernetics in relation to management. Gregory Bateson gets a mention but the book doesn't seem to follow Bateson's influence on Psychotherapy. A lot of fun stuff about augmented humans via robotics. An interesting read but I was expecting a more detailed history of cybernetics rather than cyberculture. I might view this as a modern peer to Deibold's Automation, so its useful if you want an overview of automation, computing robots and cyberculture.
April 8, 2020
A nice and thorough patchwork blanket of facts, ideas and insights of the cybernetic history. Author makes a good work of highlighting each piece of the story, but a bad work of piercing them together. It is not such a big disadvantage for me due to my Computer Science degree and background, so I am able to see through the mess and get valuable pieces of information because I have an understanding of the larger context, but for the person further from the domain it may quickly become puzzling and confusing read. I really like the part about cypherpunks and the one about cybernetics birth and early development, those are largely missed from the conventional narrative one may receive from the widespread media. It uncovers the events and personalities that influenced our world much more than say Apple or Steve Jobs, but are almost forgotten by the publicity.
April 28, 2020
One of the more fascinating books around the history of computers and how they evolved from mid 1940s to the 1990s. I have been around a computers and technology for 20 years and yet I have never read some of the stories in this book. It ties the amazing developments of radar to homeostasis machines to cybernetics to The Whole Earth Catalog to its digital form WELL to cyber punks in the 80s. Wild stuff and you never know who will show up from Vonnegut to Kevin Kelly to Ron Hubbard to the Grateful Dead. It was a great read if you are interested in the history of computers and their weird path of development.
April 9, 2019
I was not sure what cybernetic meant before I started reading this book. i thought it was about turning man into a machine. I think that states when I thought before reading this book. I had heard about Herbert wiener I read the hardcover edition. The two chapters I liked the most were chapter 5. organism and chapter 8.war. My favorite thing about chapter eight was the description of moonlight maze. And My favorite thing about thing about chapter 5 was the description of Ralph Mashed work at GE.
February 4, 2023
I picked this up after reading the authors book about disinformation titled: ‘Active Measures, The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare.’ I enjoyed the style and format and as I hoped he carried forward in similar fashion. This is a fascinating study of the history of Cybernetics with well researched content supported by good attribution. There is much to learn from this history and anyone wanting to better understand our current AI revolution will be well served in reading Mr Rid’s excellent book.
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