1st Edition
Artificial Intelligence before Computers The History of Romantic Computationalism
By Asko Nivala
Copyright 2027
276 Pages
10 B/W Illustrations
by
Routledge
This cultural history of thinking machines examines conceptions of the human as an automaton and the possibility of mechanised thought in philosophical and literary works from the seventeenth century to the 1840s, with particular emphasis on the Romantic period.
In the 2020s, there has been no escaping the debate over AI. Yet strong AI remains as much science fiction today as it was in the... Read more
Introduction
Part I: Mechanisation of Thought
1. Early Calculators and Computationalism
2. Combinatorics and Generative Poetics
3. Camera Obscura
Part II: Romantic Automata
4. Human Machine
5. Skeuomorphic Automata
6. Computing Hardware
Conclusion
Biography
Asko Nivala is Senior Research Fellow and Docent of Cultural History at University of Turku. His research focuses on the cultural history of the Romantic era. He is the author of The Romantic Idea of the Golden Age in Friedrich Schlegel’s Philosophy of History (2017).
