A Warning From the Past About the Dangers of AI
As far back as 1958, Nation writers were grappling with the prospect of ‘artificial brains,’ particularly when placed in the hands of the military.
The concept of artificial intelligence first appeared in The Nation in 1958, in a review of John von Neumann’s The Computer and the Brain.
The Computer and the Brain sketched out a then-novel analogy between the functioning of early computers and the human mind.
The Nation’s reviewer, Max Black, praised von Neumann’s earlier formulation of game theory as “one of the intellectual monuments of our time.”
Had he lived longer, Black lamented, the scientist “might have constructed an even more important theory of computing machines.
Author summary: AI dangers discussed in 1958 Nation.
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