How the world works
Norbert Wiener
He warned them first
Norbert Wiener (1894–1964 · United States) — He warned them first.
What actually happened?
Cybernetics came out of the war. He worked on the problem of aiming anti-aircraft guns at aircraft that were manoeuvring — which meant predicting where a human pilot would go, and correcting continuously from what the last shot did. The feedback loop was invented while trying to shoot at people. That origin is why the ethics arrive so early in his work: he had already spent years modelling a person as a component in a system, and had seen exactly what that framing permits.
The people who see it coming aren't hit yet
The year he wrote to the union there was still time to arrange something. Once it lands you only get to react. The stretch while you still have work is the only window you get to plan in.
'It can' doesn't imply 'give it to it'
Whether a machine can do a task is technical. What is left of the person afterwards is a different question, and the answer isn't automatically good. Hand over the repetition, not the judgement.
Control is a loop, not an order
His definition: not issuing an instruction but correcting the next move from the actual result. Cut the report back and the movement goes off, however well it was aimed. It applies unchanged to managing people and to practising a skill.
How do I use it today?
When something is spreading through your field and hasn't reached your income yet, ask which of your tasks it can already do, and who in your field you have actually talked to about it. When shifting work onto a tool, check whether what's left needs any judgement — if it doesn't, you handed over the wrong half.
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He feared people being arranged like machines, not the reverse.