02-07-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
Why We Should Thank Friedrich Hayek for AI
Gary Saul Morson and Julio M. Ottino are right that Friedrich Hayek would likely be skeptical of the use of artificial intelligence for centrally planning an economy ('What Would Hayek Think of AI?,' op-ed, July 1). But they miss an opportunity to point out the overlooked role the economist's thought played in the development of neural networks and, therefore, the modern AI revolution. Hayek considered his contribution central to his thought and was disappointed that his psychological theories didn't receive wider attention.
In 'The Sensory Order' (1952), he proposed a theory of mind that relies on neurons firing and wiring together in response to external stimuli. A deterministic explanation of how those wirings form a beautiful mind is an inscrutable mystery, but instead of trying to understand it, the founders of modern AI took Hayek's model as a given and started firing artificial neurons together. His work was cited by Frank Rosenblatt, who created the world's first neural network, and was also an inspiration to Jimmy Wales, who co-founded Wikipedia.
