Cybernetics has been the clear root of Psybertron since I started this venture 20+ years ago, and I’m often at pains to point out it was about human systems from the outset, not about general electro-mechanical computing machines and automation devices, since they didn’t exist beyond Turing’s thought experiments.
The human system / organisation / communications side of it became known as “the second cybernetics” because despite the original intent, geeks linked computation to “computers” and monopolised its use as “the first cybernetics”.
Fascinating to see James Gleick tweet this letter from The Library of Congress, struggling to classify Wiener’s original Cybernetics:
And of course, this dilemma is a foreshadowing of what later became the first and second cybernetics. The human side was primary, but only widely recognised later. The second came first.
— What, Why & How do we know? (@psybertron) March 1, 2022
Human Psychology or Electronic Computing?