God & Golem, Inc.

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In the 1964 book God & Golem, Inc.: A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion, Norbert Wiener lays down his ideas on machine learning, machine reproduction, and the place of machines in society, against a backdrop of religious references. The provocative title sums up the confrontation of technical, mathematical, and imaginative boldness with cultural prejudice. He mentions concerns such as sensory feedback in artificial limbs, the problems of human responsibility in relation to technology, the limits of machine game-playing, Darwinism, Marxism, the Cold War, the rigidity of ideological thinking, and a critique of economy as a science. In the conclusion, he shifts the burden of ethics to politics, away from religion.