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"One reason for inventing the term [AI] was to escape association with cybernetics," as McCarthy once bluntly explained. "I wished to avoid having either to accept Norbert Wiener as a guru or having to argue with him." medium.com/block-scienc...

@timkellogg.me is it true

ya, “loop engineering” emphasizes the loop, but the hard part isn’t the loop, it’s maintaining stability. i.e. cybernetics

@timkellogg.me has also pointed out the Cybernetics connection and has built a system around it

Couldn't find reference to this. Got a link? Thanks.

Hilarious that SWEs spent literal decades figuring out "observability" and now are discovering control.

Have you found that mocking people is a great way to encourage them to learn things?

Works about as well as condescending.

The "loop" everyone's excited about (perceive state, compare to goal, act, observe, repeat) has been the fundamental architecture for goal-directed systems since 1948. We keep rediscovering cybernetics. And it's very much connected to precursor-AI. x.com/omarsar0/st...

Norbert Wiener coined "cybernetics" from the Greek kybernētēs, or "steersman." The field was about one question: how does a system observe its own state, compare it to a goal, and act to close the gap? His canonical example was a gun turret tracking an aircraft.

This wasn't adjacent to early AI. It *was* early AI. Warren McCulloch organized ten conferences from 1946–1953; formally titled "Circular Causal and Feedback Mechanisms in Biological and Social Systems." The goal: a unified theory of mind and machine. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macy_c...