Notes on the reception of Cibernetics in Argentina (1950-1985)

Abstract

Although the first recorded use of the word cybernetics dates back to the 19th century by the physicist Ampère, it was N. Wiener who universalized it with his book “Cybernetics or the Control and Communication in Animals and Machines” (1948). From then on, and simultaneously with the development of computing or “electronic brains”, there was a parallel journey of cybernetics, which was at times confused with computer science. Throughout almost the entire period covered in this work, cybernetics enjoyed significant growth, associated with a wide variety of fields and expressions including speculations linked to human-machine analogies reinforced within the framework of Artificial Intelligence, a concept coined just years later. The Argentine Scientific Society then organized a colloquium in 1960, followed by a seminar between 1961 and 1974, ultimately creating the Institute of Cybernetics dedicated to the study of this topic. In 1969, the Argentine Cybernetics Society was founded in Córdoba, led by Professor Maltese from the National University of Córdoba. Between 1976 and 1983, the Institute of Cybernetics published a biannual journal with scientific papers and bibliographic reviews on the subject. Furthermore, a group of thinkers from various disciplines who, in the early 1950s, formed the "Philosophical Circle"(Bunge, Sadosky, Germani, Westerkamp, Campoamor, among others) discussed the scope of cybernetics. In this paper, we reconstruct the most notable episodes in the reception of cybernetics in Argentina between 1950 and 1985, attempting to understand what motivated the various actors at the time of this development.