The Institute for Public Policy Research seems to think it is expounding some new ideas on the dangers of future technology ( Poorest to fare worst in age of automation , 28 December), but in fact these ideas are half a century old. Norbert Wiener pointed them out in his book on Cybernetics , written in 1947 and published in 1948. His argument, in paraphrase, was that the first industrial revolution – the coming of steam power in the late 18th century – represented the devaluation of muscle, so that humans only found purpose as controllers of machines, in […]
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