Contemporary Cybernetics

During the last two years the many conferences and congresses involving cybernetics have focused on particular research and development themes. Whether the venue was at Vienna (The Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies), at Namur (The Association Internationale de Cybernétique), at Barcelona (The World Association of Cybernetics, Computer Science and System Theory, TAKIS) or in London, where the World Organisation of General Systems and Cybernetics held its Seventh International Congress of Cybernetics and Systems, the profile of the research and development contributions follows a common set of themes. The London Seventh Congress will be reviewed in some detail in Kybernetes and it will be seen that its aims were similar to those voiced at the six previous events in London, Oxford, Bucharest, Amsterdam, Mexico and Paris. The organisers identified these as being the development of the interdisciplinary sciences of cybernetics and systems without spurious accretions and exotic notions. Whatever the aims of the other cybernetics meetings they too form an international forum for the exchange of up‐to‐date information and the enhancement of contacts between scientists. At London the two hundred or so papers accepted for presentation reflected current work in fields ranging from artificial intelligence and automation to medical cybernetics and sociocybernetics.