Cybernetics and Critique

Elon Musk describes the social networking platform X as a form of »cybernetic superintelligence«, Mark Zuckerberg views companies as »learning organisms«, and the inventor of Google Glass says that »cybernetics is everywhere, like air.« These statements are not coincidental. Anyone who seeks to understand the digital revolution needs to look at its cybernetic origins. In this foundational study, Anna-Verena Nosthoff sketches out a sweeping panorama of the cyberneticisation of our datafied contemporary society – from the fist premises of a science of communication and control to the emergence of cyberspace and the current hype around AI and techno-authoritarian developments. Nosthoff illustrates that cybernetification also encompasses critique – which thus needs to reinvent itself if it is to survive.

»A work that is as detailed as it is expansive. … A must-read.« Hannah Schmidt-Ott, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»Challenging but rewarding.« Erhard Schütz, der Freitag

»A brilliant book that is indispensible if you want to understand the connections between AI and politics.« Gert Scobel, Philosophie Magazin

»Nosthoff describes … the history of cybernetics, of techno-utopias, and of a social science in which social processes, economics, but also technology all affect one another.« Robert Misik, Falter

»Alongside a comprehensive cultural history of cybernetics, Nosthoff also offers a well-founded critique of the same. Why this is so urgently important is demonstrated by the furious conclusion of the book: Nosthoff concludes that we are in the midst of an authoritarian turn in the field of cybernetics.« Nina Scholz, Deutschlandfunk Kultur