Claim · 1961 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

The supplementary chapter IX of Wiener’s Cybernetics (second edition, 1961) states that the checker-playing machine described by Samuel and Watanabe can learn to defeat the man that programmed it in a fairly consistent way.

One recorded claim. The claim panel gives its qualification, the source passages with their place in each source, and how it was checked.

What it connects

Cybernetics, second edition: supplementary chapters IX–X → contests → A machine can only do what it is ordered to do

Where it appears

Antecedent texts: machine intelligence before 1965 →

Claim and evidence

Cybernetics, second edition: supplementary chapters IX–Xcontests ↓A machine can only do what it is ordered to do

Machine-checkedStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1961 · publication Records dated 1961 →
Wording attested: 2019. Read in the MIT Press reissue (2019); the 1961 printing was not compared.
Role: Contesting
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Engagement: States the contrary. States a machine result that goes beyond its programmer’s own play, without arguing here against the premise in general terms.

Scope and limitsA report of Samuel’s and Watanabe’s results, cited to Samuel (1959) and Watanabe (1960). That a machine plays better than its programmer is contrary to a strong reading of U01 (no capability beyond its maker’s); the chapter does not claim that the machine’s output goes beyond its instructions and their consequences. Wording read in the 2019 reissue only; not compared with a 1961 printing.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (reissue of the 1961 second edition)

Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2019 (open access, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0); Internet Archive item mit_press_book_9780262355902 · 1948

Cite the original source

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Source excerpt

“can learn to defeat the man that programmed it in a fairly consistent way on the basis of from 10 to 20 operating hours of programming.”

Location in source Chapter IX, 'On Learning and Self-Reproducing Machines'

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-11-04

Source details and check notes

Authors: Norbert Wiener
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-11-02 (SHA-256 88c80833e096c562e62d6519b677966b05d439c00e00cf6fb7dfd8eddb0cbe54) and again at admission on 2026-11-04 (same file). The MIT Press reissue of 2019, catalogued as ‘Reissue of the 1961 second edition’, read in its Internet Archive OCR text. Its contents divide the book into ‘Part I. Original Edition (1948)’ and ‘Part II. Supplementary Chapters (1961)’. The 1961 preface says the first edition had typographical errors and ‘a few errors of content’; the 1948 printing was not compared, so Part I’s wording is attested here from the 2019 reissue only.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-11-04
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Norbert Wiener, “Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (reissue of the 1961 second edition)”, 1948.
Reuse: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, as the MIT Press reissue states. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage, antecedent texts (research/prehistory). The quotation (26 words) matched a fresh retrieval of 2026-11-04 (SHA-256 88c80833e096…, the file the candidate pack read). Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes, line-break hyphens and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. The subject is ‘The checker-playing machine described by Samuel and Watanabe’. No human editorial review.

Status and meaning

Editorial status. Machine-checked. Machines found this record and checked it against its sources; no person accepted it individually. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.

Relation. A passage of the document disputes the proposition or a premise it depends on. The record documents the text’s position, not who is right.

Date. Part II of the reissue is headed “Supplementary Chapters (1961)”; the 1961 printing was not read.

Record ID pre-u01-wiener-1961-cybernetics-contests