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94 people, organisations and other records · 122 relationships · 34 claims about a valueEverything recorded up to the chosen year, whether or not still in effect · Undated records included
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Wiener’s 1960 article argues that a machine acting too fast and irrevocably for people to intervene must be given exactly the purpose people really desire, and that a war-game-trained policy could win a nominal victory at the cost of real national interests. Copy claim link
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Machine-checked, not reviewed by an editor Stated in source Supported
Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source
Date 1960-05-06 · publication Claimed date 1959-12-27. Printed p. 1355 says the article is adapted from a lecture at the AAAS meeting in Chicago on this day. The lecture text was not retrieved, so the wording is not dated to it. Role Articulation Register (kind of text) Nonfiction Scope of the passage Both halves: the purpose put into a fast machine must be the one intended, and timely intervention may be impossible. Scope and limits An argument about purpose specification and the speed of machines; it does not say a machine misrepresents its goals. The war game is Wiener’s illustration, and Samuel’s checkers results are Wiener’s report.
The evidence 03 primary source Supports the claim
Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation ↗ Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) · 1960-05-06
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Source excerpt “a mechanical agency with whose operation we cannot efficiently interfere once we have started it [...] we had better be quite sure that the purpose put into the machine is the purpose which we really desire” Location in source Printed p. 1358, last paragraph before the heading "Time Scales"
Machine-checked · 2026-10-06
Source details and check notes Authors Norbert Wiener Version Scan of the original Science pages in a later JSTOR download, hosted on a Pennsylvania State University course page; text layer read and pp. 1357–1358 compared with the rendered pages by the pre-1996 candidate search. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-06 Language English (en) Attribution Norbert Wiener, "Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation", Science 131 (1960), 1355–1358. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted; the inspected copy is a university course file.. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Checked against the raw text layer of the inspected scan on 2026-10-06 (hash matched the pre-1996 candidate search); the pre-1996 candidate search compared the page images. primary source Supports the claim
Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation ↗ Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) · 1960-05-06
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Cite the original source Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.
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Source excerpt “if the rules for victory in a war game do not correspond to what we actually wish for our country, it is more than likely that such a machine may produce a policy which would win a nominal victory on points” Location in source Printed p. 1357, paragraphs before the heading "Man and Slave"
Machine-checked · 2026-10-06
Source details and check notes Authors Norbert Wiener Version Scan of the original Science pages in a later JSTOR download, hosted on a Pennsylvania State University course page; text layer read and pp. 1357–1358 compared with the rendered pages by the pre-1996 candidate search. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-06 Language English (en) Attribution Norbert Wiener, "Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation", Science 131 (1960), 1355–1358. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted; the inspected copy is a university course file.. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Checked against the raw text layer; the following words are damaged in the text layer and are not quoted. primary source Supports the claim
Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation ↗ Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) · 1960-05-06
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Cite the original source Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.
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Paraphrase An operator may have a means of stopping a machine yet lack timely information that it must be stopped; if the machine processes information faster than the operator, intervention can come after the damage.
Location in source Printed p. 1357, right column, paragraphs on intervention and the switch-off analogy
Machine-checked · 2026-10-06
Source details and check notes Authors Norbert Wiener Version Scan of the original Science pages in a later JSTOR download, hosted on a Pennsylvania State University course page; text layer read and pp. 1357–1358 compared with the rendered pages by the pre-1996 candidate search. Canonical address Open the canonical source ↗ Accessed 2026-10-06 Language English (en) Attribution Norbert Wiener, "Some Moral and Technical Consequences of Automation", Science 131 (1960), 1355–1358. Reuse No open redistribution licence asserted; the inspected copy is a university course file.. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution. Check notes Paraphrase from the pre-1996 candidate search, which compared the page image. Status and meaning Editorial status. Not reviewed by an editor . An exploratory record that no editor has accepted. This status does not say whether a person has read any linked passage. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.
Relation. A passage of the document meets the proposition’s criterion. The record documents what the text states, in its register (fiction and satire are labelled); it is not evidence that the proposition is true and implies no influence on or from another text.
Date. Date printed on the Science pages.
Record ID ts-b6-wiener-1960