It began in the crucible of a world at war. The word cybernetics was coined in 1948 by the MIT mathematician Norbert Wiener, a man wrestling with the urgent problem of how to make a machine shoot down another machine. He reached back to the ancient Greek for kubernétes, the steersman, the one who guides and corrects. Plato had used it as a metaphor for governing a polis. Wiener used it to describe a new science of self-governing systems, of control and communication in the animal and the machine. The core idea was feedback, a circular flow of information that allows a system to sense its own performance and steer itself toward a goal.The idea was not about mechanics but about behavior. The focus shifted from what things are to what they do. A thermostat maintaining the temperature of a room, a human body maintaining homeostasis, a pilot correcting the flight path of an airplane; all were, in this new light, functionally the same. They were all steersmen. The conciseness of the concept was seductive, its implications unsettling. It suggested a universal logic humming beneath the surface of both wired circuits and living tissue, blurring the line between the made and the born. You shape the algorithm, and the algorithm shapes you.The primordial cybernetic device was James Watt’s centrifugal governor, that elegant pirouette of spinning weights that tamed the steam engine in 1788. As the engine raced, the rotating balls swung wide, closing a valve to slow it; as the engine slowed, they fell, opening the valve again. It was a perfect, self-contained conversation. But it was the Second World War that gave birth to the theory. Human reflexes were no longer fast enough for the new calculus of aerial combat. Wiener and his colleagues were tasked with solving the “air defense problem,” which was really a problem of prediction. They treated the enemy pilot, the gun, and the radar as a single, closed-loop system, each reacting to the other in a lethal dance. By the war’s end, as one analyst starkly put it, autonomous machines were shooting down other autonomous machines in the “first battle of the robots.” In the Cold War that followed, cybernetics became a tool of ideological contest. In the West, it was the logic of the military-industrial complex, of corporate automation and the game theory of nuclear deterrence humming away in the computers at Project RAND. It promised optimization and control. Yet the idea proved too fluid to be contained. While men in uniform were designing command-and-control networks, Stewart Brand was on the West Coast, publishing the Whole Earth Catalog. He filled its pages with cybernetic theory, reimagining it not as a tool for top-down control but for bottom-up, self-regulating communities. The catalog itself was a feedback loop, constantly updated by its readers. For a generation of commune-dwellers and future Silicon Valley pioneers, cybernetics was the grammar of personal liberation and ecological harmony. Computers, Brand wrote in Rolling Stone, were “coming to the people.” RELATED: 'They want to spy on you': Military tech CEO explains why AI companies don't want you going offline Photo by Matt CardyThe Soviets, meanwhile, followed a more jagged path. Initially denouncing cybernetics as a "bourgeois pseudoscience," they performed a complete reversal after Stalin’s death. Here was a science, they realized, that could perfect the planned economy. Visionaries like Anatoly Kitov and Victor Glushkov dreamed of a vast, nationwide computer network called OGAS, an electronic nervous system that would link every factory to a central hub in Moscow. It was an ambitious plan for “electronic socialism,” a rational, data-driven alternative to the brute-force dictates of the past. The system, they hoped, would offer a technocratic antidote to personal tyranny. OGAS was never fully built, stalled by bureaucracy and technical limits, but the dream itself was telling. Both superpowers saw in the feedback loop a reflection of their own ambitions: one for market efficiency, the other for state perfection. Perhaps the most popular incarnation of the cybernetic dream was Project Cybersyn in Salvador Allende’s Chile. From 1971 to 1973, the British cybernetician Stafford Beer designed a nerve center for the Chilean economy. In a futuristic operations room that looked like a set from "Star Trek," managers sat in molded white chairs, surrounded by screens displaying real-time production data fed from factories across the country via a network of telex machines. It was an attempt to steer a national economy in real-time, to keep it in a “dynamic equilibrium” against the shocks of strikes and embargoes. Cybersyn was a short-lived project, ending with the 1973 coup, but it remains a powerful symbol of the cybernetic ideal: a society as a single, responsive, controllable system. The feedback loop was not confined to the physical world. It began to shape our fictions, which in turn shaped our reality. William Gibson, who knew famously little about computers, coined the word “cyberspace” in his 1984 novel "Neuromancer." The vision was so compelling it seemed to will itself into existence, providing the language and the imaginative blueprint for a generation of technologists building the early internet and virtual reality. Neal Stephenson’s 1992 novel "Snow Crash" gave us the “metaverse” and the “avatar,” terms that have since migrated from fiction to corporate strategy. Cyberpunk literature provided the prototypes for the world we now inhabit.Today, the word “cybernetics” feels archaic, a relic of a retro-futurist past. Yet its principles are more deeply embedded in our lives than Wiener could have imagined. We are all entangled in cybernetic loops. The social media algorithms that monitor our clicks to refine their feeds, which in turn shape our behavior, are feedback systems of astonishing power and intimacy. You shape the algorithm, and the algorithm shapes you. A self-driving car navigating city traffic is a cybernetic organism, constantly sensing, processing, and acting. Our smart homes and wearable devices are nodes in a network of perpetual, low-grade feedback. We have built a world of steersmen, of systems that regulate themselves. The question that lingers is the one Wiener implicitly asked from the beginning. In a world of automated, self-correcting systems, who, or what, is charting the course?

The Trump administration performed strikes in international waters in the eastern Pacific on Monday to stop several boats carrying illegal narcotics, according to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.'We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them.'He announced on Tuesday the results of "three lethal kinetic strikes on four vessels," claiming that they were operated by "Designated Terrorist Organizations." In January, President Donald Trump designated international cartels as foreign terrorist organizations for flooding the U.S. with "deadly drugs, violent criminals, and vicious gangs."Monday's strikes killed 14 narco-terrorists, Hegseth said. No U.S. forces were harmed."Eight male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessels during the first strike. Four male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the second strike. Three male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the third strike," he explained. "The Department has spent over TWO DECADES defending other homelands. Now, we're defending our own. These narco-terrorists have killed more Americans than Al-Qaeda, and they will be treated the same. We will track them, we will network them, and then, we will hunt and kill them."Hegseth noted that there was one survivor."Regarding the survivor, USSOUTHCOM immediately initiated Search and Rescue (SAR) standard protocols; Mexican SAR authorities accepted the case and assumed responsibility for coordinating the rescue," he added.RELATED: 'We will stop you cold': Trump announces successful strike against 'narcoterrorist' vessel Pete Hegseth. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesMexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Tuesday condemned the most recent strikes."We do not agree with these attacks, with how they are carried out," Sheinbaum stated. "We want all international treaties to be complied with."RELATED: Trump’s Caribbean ‘drug wars’ are forging a new Monroe Doctrine Photographer: Will Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesA separate strike was carried out at President Donald Trump's direction in the Caribbean Sea last week against a vessel reportedly operated by Tren de Aragua."The vessel was known by our intelligence to be involved in illicit narcotics smuggling, was transiting along a known narco-trafficking route, and carrying narcotics," Hegseth stated on Friday. "Six male narco-terrorists were aboard the vessel during the strike, which was conducted in international waters — and was the first strike at night. All six terrorists were killed, and no U.S. forces were harmed in this strike."The U.S. has performed more than a dozen strikes since September. At least 57 people have been killed, according to the Associated Press. — (@) Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

A small but significant percentage of Americans say they are open to having a friendship with artificial intelligence, while some are even open to romance with AI.The figures come from a new study by the Institute for Family Studies and YouGov, which surveyed American adults under 40 years old. Their data revealed that while very few young Americans are already friends with some sort of AI, about 10 times that amount are open to it.'It signals how loneliness and weakened human connection are driving some young adults.'Just 1% of Americans under 40 who were surveyed said they were already friends with an AI. However, a staggering 10% said they are open to the idea. With 2,000 participants surveyed, that's 200 people who said they might be friends with a computer program.Liberals said they were more open to the idea of befriending AI (or are already in such a friendship) than conservatives were, to the tune of 14% of liberals vs. 9% of conservatives.The idea of being in a "romantic" relationship with AI, not just a friendship, again produced some troubling — or scientifically relevant — responses.RELATED: US Army says it is not replacing 'human decision-making' with AI after general admits to using chatbot — (@) When it comes to young adults who are not married or "cohabitating," 7% said they are open to the idea of being in a romantic partnership with AI.At the same time, a larger percentage of young adults think that AI has the potential to replace real-life romantic relationships; that number sits at a whopping 25%, or 500 respondents.There exists a large crossover with frequent pornography users, as the more frequently one says they consume online porn, the more likely they are to be open to having an AI as a romantic partner, or are already in such a relationship.Only 5% of those who said they never consume porn, or do so "a few times a year," said they were open to an AI romantic partner.That number goes up to 9% for those who watch porn between once or twice a month and several times per week. For those who watch online porn daily, the number was 11%.Overall, young adults who are heavy porn users were the group most open to having an AI girlfriend or boyfriend, in addition to being the most open to an AI friendship.RELATED: The laws freaked-out AI founders want won't save us from tech slavery if we reject Christ's message Graphic courtesy Institute for Family Studies "Roughly one in 10 young Americans say they’re open to an AI friendship — but that should concern us," Dr. Wendy Wang of the Institute for Family Studies told Blaze News. "It signals how loneliness and weakened human connection are driving some young adults to seek emotional comfort from machines rather than people," she added.Another interesting statistic to take home from the survey was the fact that young women were more likely than men to perceive AI as a threat in general, with 28% agreeing with the idea vs. 23% of men. Women are also less excited about AI's effect on society; just 11% of women were excited vs. 20% of men.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

An 8 ½-minute FBI video on the Jan. 6 pipe bombs, released last week, omits key new evidence, relies on likely manipulated, low-quality footage, and excludes crucial hours of security video that could clarify the most persistent questions that surround the languishing investigation.The bureau released the video to revive public interest in a case that has gone unsolved for nearly five years. Its timing comes just two weeks after a video sleuth briefed congressional investigators, alleging serious flaws in the FBI’s account of the pipe bombs. Despite those claims — including apparent video manipulation and ignored public tips — the bureau has stuck to its original story.‘You releasing that info made it impossible for them to even float that excuse.’ The new footage also offers no hint that the FBI considered publicly acknowledging another theory: that the pipe bombs were part of a poorly timed training exercise. FBI sources told Blaze News weeks ago about rumors the bureau had been preparing to report that several federal agencies took part in a training exercise that diverted police resources from the Capitol as thousands of protesters breached its barricades at 12:53 p.m.Those same sources said that once word of this alleged new theory leaked, the FBI abandoned it. The latest video reflects that retreat, repeating the same facts and framing first presented in 2021.RELATED: FBI sent 55 agents to the Capitol Jan. 6, none for ‘crowd control,’ former Chief Steven Sund says “The 7th floor guys were pissed at you for going public with the ‘undisclosed training event’ scenario as a potential cover-up,” a source close to the FBI Washington Field Office told Blaze News. “I’m told you releasing that info made it impossible for them to even float that excuse after you picked it apart.”Another FBI source previously told Blaze News that the bureau floated the idea that several federal agencies were involved in the pipe-bomb plot and cover-up. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.New low-quality videoThe FBI released snippets of new video of the alleged pipe-bomb suspect from the night of Jan. 5, 2021. That footage, of similar low quality as previously released video evidence, is edited in such a way that it excludes showing a U.S. Capitol Police squad SUV pull up directly across the street from where the suspect stood at 8:15 p.m.The omissions come despite an independent video investigator telling Blaze News he has been feeding his findings to an FBI special agent at the Washington Field Office since late March. It is not clear what, if anything, the FBI has done with the extensive research done by an individual known on X as Armitas. He has asked Blaze News not to use his real name for security reasons.Armitas’ report to Congress says video footage released by the FBI of the hoodie-wearing suspect was digitally altered. Software was used to crop the image area and reduce the video frame rate, he said.RELATED: FBI Jan. 6 report sets off a firestorm: Why did it take 56 months to disclose 274 agents at Capitol? Some of the video of the alleged Jan. 6 pipe bomber released by the FBI was low quality. FBIThe FBI says an individual of unknown sex wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt, jeans, black gloves, and rare Nike Air Max Speed Turf sneakers planted pipe bombs at the Democratic National Committee and a short time later along the rear wall of the Capitol Hill Club not far from the Republican National Committee building. The FBI and the Metropolitan Police Department continue to offer a $500,000 reward for evidence that leads to an arrest in the case.Aside from some short segments of new footage, the FBI update video is nearly identical to one released Jan. 2, 2021. It comes after Armitas submitted 26 pages of findings to the new House Select Subcommittee to Investigate the Remaining Questions Surrounding Jan. 6 — and months after he said he began sharing those details with an FBI special agent.Sources told Blaze News that reducing the frame rate on video makes it very difficult to perform a forensic analysis of the bomber’s gait, or manner of walking. Gait-analysis could help narrow the list of suspects or lead investigators toward a person of interest.Congressional Black Caucus a target?The FBI video’s animated map of the suspect’s travels glosses over an apparent stop the person made at a bush on the north side of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, 413 New Jersey Ave. Southeast. It appears, based on the bomber’s behavior, that the CBCI was the original target of the first pipe bomb, Armitas said.The FBI video said the suspect “pauses near the corner of D Street,” but it failed to mention anything about the suspect seemingly attempting to place the device under the bush at the CBCI.Video from Capitol Police CCTV Camera 795 showed the suspect walking north on New Jersey Avenue, then turning left into an alley next to the Black Caucus Institute building at about 7:47 p.m. The suspect spent more than a minute near the bush — first bent over and then sitting down in front of the shrub, video shows. The individual appeared to lean into the bush while seated, then got up and continued west down the alley. A short time later, the alleged bomber came back up the alley past the bush toward New Jersey Avenue, then raced back into the alley as if he or she forgot something. The suspect then returned to New Jersey Avenue at 7:50 p.m. and walked south for a block before turning right onto Ivy Street Southeast toward the DNC, video showed.Armitas posited that a piece of the pipe bomb broke off while the suspect was attempting to plant it at the CBCI. A construction worker appeared to notice the broken component at 1 p.m. on Jan. 6. The worker can be seen pausing to peer under the bush and then continuing down the alley. The alleged Jan. 6 pipe bomber (left) stops and sits down at a bush next to the Congressional Black Caucus Institute the night of Jan. 5, 2021. A Capitol Police countersurveillance officer (right) peers at something under the same bush just minutes before he discovered the pipe bomb at the nearby Democratic National Committee on Jan. 6. U.S. Capitol Police CCTVA two-man team of U.S. Capitol Police countersurveillance agents walked west up the alley at 1:02 p.m., stopped to chat for about 30 seconds, then returned down the alley. One of the officers noticed something under the bush, then leaned in for a closer look just before 1:03 p.m. The officers walked back to the nearby DNC, where one of them discovered the pipe bomb under a bush next to a park bench at 1:05 p.m.Two buildings were constructed immediately north of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute building in the nearly five years since Jan. 6, so the alley and the bush are no longer there, according to street view images from Google Maps and Apple Maps.Congressional dormitory, police lightsOne of the new video clips released by the FBI shows the suspect walking east along C Street about 8:15 p.m. The video cuts off just before the suspect stops in the front garden of the C Street Center, 133 C St. Southeast. The building has long served as a dormitory or rooming house for members of Congress and staff.Armitas said it appears the suspect was attempting to place the pipe bomb in the bushes in front of 133 C Street but may have been interrupted by a Capitol Police squad car that turned onto C Street from the east with its emergency lights on.The squad car pulled over a dark-colored Jeep that minutes earlier had driven down C Street, turned left onto First, made a U-turn, and then drove down D Street, turned left onto Second and left again onto C Street. It appears the squad engaged its emergency lights just as the Jeep turned onto C Street, video showed.There is no mention in any of the FBI materials across 58 months of a Capitol Police squad car parking directly across C Street from where the alleged would-be bomber stood at 8:15 p.m.RELATED: GOP-run Jan. 6 subcommittee goes after trove of data deleted by Pelosi-appointed Jan. 6 committee The pipe bomb suspect (above left) walking west on C Street toward Rumsey Court, stopping in front of a congressional rooming house (upper right), possibly looking to place a pipe bomb on Jan. 5, 2021. Capitol Police squad cars (below) with lights engaged were across the street as the suspect walked down the court to plant the bomb. FBI/@Armitas/U.S. Capitol Police CCTVThe bright blue-and-red emergency lights from the squad car reflected off of the suspect’s gray sweatshirt as he or she walked down into Rumsey Court from C Street, Capitol Police CCTV video shows. Interestingly, the Capitol Police squad car was the same one the suspect appeared to wave to minutes earlier as the police vehicle drove south on First Street and the suspect walked north past the front of the Capitol Hill Club.A second Capitol Police car turned onto C Street from the west at 8:18 p.m., did a Y-turn and pulled in behind the first squad. Both officers approached the Jeep with flashlights on. They wrapped up the traffic stop at 8:30. The suspect by then had escaped Rumsey Court and apparently disappeared.Escape through hidden gateArmitas said he tracked the suspect’s exit from Rumsey Court through a garden on the property of St. Peter’s Church on Capitol Hill and onto Second Street Southeast. The FBI’s video does not include this detail, stating instead that the suspect was “last seen” at 8:18 p.m. heading east on Rumsey Court.The fence between Rumsey Court and the St. Peter’s garden did not have an obvious gate. It appeared as a contiguous fence across the property, Armitas said. So the suspect would have had to know how and where the hidden gate could be unlatched to access the St. Peter’s garden and make the escape onto Second Street, he said.Blaze News has twice inspected the gate. Without familiarity with the property, it is nearly impossible to recognize the existence of the gate or find a hidden latch.Bomb retrieval, missing video Armitas theorized that the DNC bomb assembly was broken by the suspect during the attempt to drop the device next to the CBCI building. So the device the suspect set at the base of a park bench next to the DNC could have needed repair, he said.Also, the suspect appeared to place the pipe bomb with the short end — where a 60-minute kitchen timer was attached — sticking out toward the sidewalk. When the pipe bomb was discovered at 1:05 p.m. on Jan. 6, the long end was sticking out with the egg timer pointed into the bushes, he said. Both facts would indicate the device was removed and later replaced, Armitas said.RELATED: Bobby Powell gave his last breath working to expose Jan. 6 corruption The pipe-bomb suspect places the device in the bushes outside the Democratic National Committee headquarters at 7:54 p.m. Jan. 5, 2021, the FBI says. FBIThose assertions and others could be proven or disproven if the FBI would release the DNC security video for Jan. 6. Several key Capitol Police security cameras were turned away from the DNC at crucial times on Jan. 6. So the DNC’s security cameras appear to have the only footage that can answer questions about the Secret Service’s security sweep of the DNC building the morning of Jan. 6. They also hold the answer to whether the bomb was present while bomb-sniffing dogs did a sweep of parts of the building exterior.Depending what the DNC video shows, the pipe bomb was either missed by the Secret Service and still sitting under the bench as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris pulled into the DNC garage around 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 6, or the bomb was re-placed under the bench while Harris was inside the building.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took the stage at a rally for NYC mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani with a thunderous speech.“We are not the crazy ones, New York City. We are not the outlandish ones, New York City. They want us to think we are crazy. We are sane,” AOC boomed.“Jews escaping Holocaust, black Americans fleeing slavery and Jim Crow, Latinos seeking a better life, native people standing for themselves, Asian-Americans coming together in Queens, in Brooklyn, in the Bronx, in Manhattan, in Staten Island, in this country,” she yelled.BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales can’t help but laugh, though she is well aware of the disaster that looms in New York City.“There’s no way that anyone else gets elected as the mayor of New York City, and this guy is going out there telling fake stories about his aunt. So, we’re supposed to believe, what, that it was the Muslims that we really actually should feel sorry for after 9/11?” Gonzales says, referring to Mamdani’s recent statement that his hijab-wearing aunt was a victim in the aftermath of 9/11.BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden is also concerned, saying that we not only have a “communist infiltration in the United States,” but an Islamic one.And Mamdani is using the term “Islamaphobic” against those who recognize what’s happening.“It really has been fascinating to watch him try to use this Islamophobia term. I would say, I will agree with him in part. I do agree. I am actually very scared of Islam,” Gonzales says.“I just don’t agree that it is unreasonable, which would be the phobia part. ... I am afraid. I just don’t think that it’s some sort irrational fear, is the thing,” she adds.Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.