Weird A.I.
Name
Lindquist - Weird AI.pdf
Size
251.38 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
9b93355b6cf6fd7048c82aff2a6754dd
Author(s)
Lindquist, Benjamin
Date Issued
March 18, 2026
Journal
IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Citation
B. Lindquist, "Weird A.I.," in IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 48, no. 1, pp. 66-72, Jan.-March 2026.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
This essay sketches out what I call “weird AI”: probabilistic, associative systems that behave as if they feel. It shows how midcentury architects of artificial neural networks deliberately courted the uncanny as they engineered space for intuition, emotion, and nonrational thought, even as standard histories cast computing as an Enlightenment project of calculation and control. To make sense of artificial intelligence’s past and present, historians must move beyond an information-centric framework and reckon with the affective undercurrents that have shaped the field from its start.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. History Section
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
10.1109/mahc.2026.3658244
