Early interactions between life insurance and computer industries : the Prudential's Edmund Berkeley and The Society of Actuaries Committee : 1946-1952

Cover title. Presented to the Seminar in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT in September 1993; and at the Hagley Research Seminar, Wilmington, DE, April, 1995.Includes bibliographical references (p. 36-40).JoAnne Yates

Histórias da informática no Brasil: por uma perspectiva local, situada e múltipla

Este artigo tem como objetivo refletir sobre a existência de um espaço para a memória e para o futuro da informática no Brasil em termos de histórias da informática, como formulação plural articulada a uma perspectiva local e situada para o campo disciplinar da história da informática. Na primeira parte do artigo, problematizamos as qualidades de singularidade, coesão e universalidade que parecem emergir das reflexões historiográficas de pesquisadores estadunidenses do campo. Em particular, defendemos que tais qualidades não se sustentam, através do destaque ao aspecto local e situado da comunidade estadunidense de historiadores/as da informática, isto é, sua endogenia relativa. Em seguida, o artigo se volta à comunidade de historiadores/as da informática brasileiros/as reunidos/as nos Simpósios de História da Informática na América Latina e Caribe (SHIALC), destacando seus vínculos e sua produção. Em particular, abrimos um diálogo com perspectivas dos Estudos CTS que têm procurado refletir sobre as tensões/relações Norte-Sul/Global-Local/Universal- Situado e apontamos para a construção de uma informática (ou computação) (pós/de)colonial ou para um pensamento sobre a tecnociência em territórios como a América Latina que supere a ideia de mágica importada.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

From tabulators to early computers in the U.S. life insurance industry : co-evolution and continuities

"October 1993."Includes bibliographical references.JoAnne Yates

Le regard français de Charles Babbage (1791-1871)sur le « déclin de la science en Angleterre »

Dans l’imagerie classique des informaticiens, Charles Babbage (1791-1871) est souvent considéré comme le « père » ou le « pionnier » de l’ordinateur : les plans de sa « machine analytique » sont en effet ceux d’une calculatrice automatique et mécanique à programme externe, susceptible de calculer aussi bien sur des nombres que sur des symboles. Cette imagerie conforte l’histoire hagiographique des génies isolés, puisque d’après cette perspective, il faut attendre un siècle, essentiellement autour d’Alan Turing (1912-1954) et de John von Neumann (1903-1957), pour voir se concrétiser la réalisation de ce nouveau type de machines. Mon propos est de restituer cet apport de Babbage dans un contexte plus vaste que ne le dessine une histoire strictement conceptuelle. Babbage était en effet un mathématicien fasciné à la fois par le développement industriel de son pays, et par la réorganisation des institutions du savoir en France, issue de la Révolution Française. C’est fort de cette volonté réformatrice qu’il s’attaque à ce qu’il qualifie en 1830 de « déclin de la science anglaise ». En dépit de la finesse prospective de ses analyses et de ses projets, il demeure cependant un « gentleman amateur », travaillant dans son atelier personnel à l’élaboration de ses machines. Confronter les différentes facettes du projet de Babbage à la situation effective des relations entre science et industrie, tant en France qu’en Angleterre, peut permettre d’éclairer l’évolution de cette situation jusqu’à la réalisation effective de l’« analyseur harmonique » de Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) en 1876.Traditional accounts of computing view Charles Babbage (1791-1871) as the “father” or “pioneer” of the computer. Actually, Babbage’s planned “analytical engine” corresponds to an automatic mechanical computing machine with an external program that works using both symbols and numbers. This traditionalist view reinforces the hagiographic history of isolated geniuses in the history of science. Such histories suggest that in the century following Babbage’s death, relatively little occurred in “computing” until Alan Turing (1912-1954) and John von Neumann (1903-1957) works. My research situates Babbage within his context and broadens the account by extending beyond a mere history of ideas. Babbage, as a mathematician, was fascinated both by the industrial development of Britain as well as the post-Revolutionary organisation of institutions of knowledge in France. Babbage looked at what he termed “the decline of English science” from this view, though he himself continued to behave as a “gentleman amateur”, working on his machines in his personal workshop. In addition, situating Babbage’s analytical designs within the context of relationships emerging between science and industry in France and England in the 19th century helps to better highlight the deeply industrial context within which Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) built his own harmonic analyzer in 1876

Toward A Firm Technology Adoption Model (F-TAM) In A Developing Country Context

The diffusion of digital innovations among SMEs in developing countries like Ghana is slow due to several factors. Well-known adoption models appear to have often been from developed country contexts and have proposed antecedents of behavioral intention instead of actual adoption. Consequently, many variables from existing models have been present in developing country contexts such as Ghana and yet most digital innovations have not been adopted. A systematic literature review is employed to explore the contexts within which earlier models of technology adoption were developed, and to build a revised model of factors that lead to actual adoption in a developing country context. The results indicate that acknowledged models were developed from contexts that are different from that of Ghana. The study improves the existing knowledge gap of antecedents of adoption in a developing country context. The model provides the reference factors that SMEs and governments must ensure that they enhance adoption of innovations

Inventing Intelligence: On the History of Complex Information Processing and Artificial Intelligence in the United States in the Mid-Twentieth Century

In the mid-1950s, researchers in the United States melded formal theories of problem solving and intelligence with another powerful new tool for control: the electronic digital computer. Several branches of western mathematical science emerged from this nexus, including computer science (1960s–), data science (1990s–) and artificial intelligence (AI). This thesis offers an account of the origins and politics of AI in the mid-twentieth century United States, which focuses on its imbrications in systems of societal control. In an effort to denaturalize the power relations upon which the field came into being, I situate AI’s canonical origin story in relation to the structural and intellectual priorities of the U.S. military and American industry during the Cold War, circa 1952 to 1961. This thesis offers a detailed and comparative account of the early careers, research interests, and key outputs of four researchers often credited with laying the foundations for AI and machine learning—Herbert A. Simon, Frank Rosenblatt, John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky. It chronicles the distinct ways in which each sought to formalise and simulate human mental behaviour using digital electronic computers. Rather than assess their contributions as discontinuous with what came before, as in mythologies of AI's genesis, I establish continuities with, and borrowings from, management science and operations research (Simon), Hayekian economics and instrumentalist statistics (Rosenblatt), automatic coding techniques and pedagogy (McCarthy), and cybernetics (Minsky), along with the broadscale mobilization of Cold War-era civilian-led military science generally. I assess how Minsky’s 1961 paper 'Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence' simultaneously consolidated and obscured these entanglements as it set in motion an initial research agenda for AI in the following two decades. I argue that mind-computer metaphors, and research in complex information processing generally, played an important role in normalizing the small- and large-scale structuring of social behaviour using mathematics in the United States from the second half of the twentieth century onward