Norbert Wiener

American mathematician (1894–1964) who founded cybernetics — "control and communication in the animal and the machine." In the wiki via a secondary commentary on his The Human Use of Human Beings (1950).

What we have so far

From The Human Use of Human Beings — Wiener (excerpt) (secondary commentary + one quote):

• Information-theoretic aesthetics — Wiener argued that clichés "literally contain less information" than innovative, idiosyncratic expression; originality is high-information (Clichés Carry Less Information). Modern LLMs are said to "corroborate it perfectly."
• Against purposeless communication — his "priest of communication" warning: communication produced for status rather than need loses value.

These turn out to be a striking ~1950 antecedent of the AI-era Slop / demand-for-difference thesis.

Still unread (reading leads)

His primary works remain unread — we have only commentary. The control / feedback / steering side of cybernetics (the part that would ground Communication and Control Are Intertwined) is not covered by what we've read:

• Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948).
• The Human Use of Human Beings (1950) — primary text (we have only a clipped gloss).

Connections

• Clichés Carry Less Information — the Wiener idea now grounded in the wiki.
• Slop — his cliché-as-low-information point, industrialized by LLMs.
• Communication and Control Are Intertwined — promoted 2026-11-09 via Ashby — An Introduction to Cybernetics, who builds on Wiener's definition; Wiener's own control/feedback passages are still unread and are where the converse half would be tested.
• Jean E. Fox Tree — the other reading lead for that seed (communication-as-control at the dialogue scale).

Sources

• The Human Use of Human Beings — Wiener (excerpt) — secondary commentary; primary works still to read.