Topic · 3 articles

The Cold War

How rival superpowers built, funded and fought over cybernetics.

Cybernetics in the United States

Born in American wartime labs, funded by the military, eclipsed by AI, and kept alive by the counterculture. The American story of cybernetics.

The Editors 30 October 2026

People

Norbert Wiener

Child prodigy, MIT mathematician, wartime engineer, and the first scientist to refuse military work on moral grounds after 1945. The life of the man who named cybernetics.

The Editors 9 October 2026

Foundations

A Very Brief History of Cybernetics

From wartime gun predictors to the Macy Conferences, Soviet planning, Chilean socialism, and the internet: eighty years in five phases.

The Editors 3 October 2026