“Russian Scandals”: Soviet Readings of American Cybernetics in the Early Years of the Cold War

This article examines the first Soviet initiative to develop a national computer network as the basis for an automated information system for the management of the national economy. This initiative was made by prominent Soviet scientist Engineer Colonel Anatoly Ivanovich Kitov whose 90 th anniversary is celebrated in 2010. The article attempts to view the history of Soviet computer networks as part of Soviet history, in which technology and politics closely intertwined.

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“…The history of these projects is presented in [5][6][7][8][9]. Unfortunately, the nationwide computer network in the USSR was never built.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anatoly Kitov: Technology vs ideology. The story about the first in the USSR project of nationwide computer network

Kitov

Шилов

2010

2010 Second Region 8 IEEE Conference on the History of Communications

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“…In a way, almost all political parties and governments today believe in the possibility and desirability of cybernetically or algorithmically guided economies monitoring economic indicators such as wages, employment, production, prices, and inflation, and then adjusting interest rates, taxation, and public spending to maintain economic equilibrium (Leijonhufvud 1/17/18 1972;Cochrane and Graham 1976;Umpleby 2011). But, aside from this broad consensus, the idea of replacing government and/or markets with computers and algorithms even fell out of favor in the Communist bloc in the 1980s (Gerovitch 2001(Gerovitch , 2002. In retrospect, the Soviet project was ludicrous; computers were always rare and expensive in the 1970s (some of the cybernetics institutes never got one), it took years to collect the economic information for a single plan, and the economic information reported by enterprises was widely known to be useless.…”

Section: Ai and The Computational Barrier To A Planned Economymentioning

confidence: 99%

Algorithms and Posthuman Governance

Hughes

2017

Journal of Posthuman Studies

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Since the Enlightenment, there have been advocates for the rationalizing efficiency of enlightened sovereigns, bureaucrats, and technocrats. Today these enthusiasms are joined by calls for replacing or augmenting government with algorithms and artificial intelligence, a process already substantially under way. Bureaucracies are in effect algorithms created by technocrats that systematize governance, and their automation simply removes bureaucrats and paper. The growth of algorithmic governance can already be seen in the automation of social services, regulatory oversight, policing, the justice system, and the military. However, there have also always been justified democratic and economic criticisms of autocracy, bureaucracy, technocracy, and algorithmic governance. Bureaucrats, technocrats, and algorithms embody biases that tend to serve the interests of elites, and all require transparency and democratic accountability, oversight individual citizens are ill equipped to exercise. As state apparatuses are increasingly automated, mechanisms for collective action and democratic oversight also need to be automated. Algorithms and cyborg citizenry will enable a posthuman democracy. Democratically accountable algorithmic governance, enabled by artificial intelligence and human enhancement, can automate bottom-up citizen surveillance, inform debate, aggregate decision making, and ensure the efficient working of the gradually withering state. As paid work disappears and we transition to a postcapitalist economy with a universal basic income, market mechanisms can be replaced with democratic planning. Indeed, only algorithmic governance can secure our future against accelerating threats from technological innovation.

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“…Die sirkulasie van enkele eksemplare van dié boek het egter die regte klimaat geskep vir 'n oplewing in die kubernetika en teoretiese rekenaarwetenskap na Stalin se dood in 1953. Dié ideologiese ommekeer was so groot dat die kubernetika in 1961 in die Kommunistiese Party se program opgeneem is as 'n sleutelwetenskap vir die skepping van die materiële en tegniese grondslae van kommunisme [9].…”

Section: Feynman Benioff En Deutschunclassified

Die bewerking van idiome in tweetalige woordeboeke

Potgieter

2011

Lex

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“Russian Scandals”: Soviet Readings of American Cybernetics in the Early Years of the Cold War

Cited by 14 publications

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Anatoly Kitov: Technology vs ideology. The story about the first in the USSR project of nationwide computer network

Anatoly Kitov: Technology vs ideology. The story about the first in the USSR project of nationwide computer network

Algorithms and Posthuman Governance

Die bewerking van idiome in tweetalige woordeboeke

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