Graduation Term
Spring 2026
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Department of History
Committee Chair
Nathan Kapoor
Committee Member
Andrew Hartman
Committee Member
Amy Wood
Abstract
Following the Second World War, cybernetics emerged as a cross-disciplinary study in philosophy, neurophysiology, electrical engineering, and mathematics. Cyberneticists proposed the formal study of the man-machine analogy; that is, to equate biological structures to a complex mechanical system. Drawing from this analogy, cyberneticists used programmable digital computers to emulate the functions of the human brain. The study of artificial intelligence emerged within this cybernetic discourse in the early 1950s; yet, by the mid-1960s, the two disciplines suffered a methodological fracture. Drawing from a tradition generated by this fracture, historians have traditionally examined cybernetics and artificial intelligence in isolation from one another. An exploration of Cold War technological imaginaries in conjunction with scientific discourse draws the two disciplines back together. Taken together, cybernetics and artificial intelligence illuminate not only scientific controversy, but also the contours of Cold War scientific research and technological anxiety at large.
Access Type
Thesis-Open Access
Recommended Citation
Wilcox, Erin Mae, "Thinking Machines: Cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence, and Technological Anxiety in the American Cold War" (2026). Theses and Dissertations. 2283.
https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd/2283