From engineering to cybernetics

Abstract

‘Cybernetics’ has become a vogue word, and it is no longer surprising to hear of cybernetically designed tractor cabs or cybernetically controlled icecream production. Legitimate as all this may well be, one cannot help being suspicious. Despite its popularity, the subject is not really well understood. Some think that it is about brains, robots and machine intelligence. Others connect it in some vague way with engineering and biology. So what is cybernetics? The study of artifical intelligence does fall under the umbrella of cybernetics, but I don't intend to give this aspect much coverage. I think that cybernetics is much more general.