Going back to the industrial age, the historical epistemology of science and technology suggests that we reconsider the project of machine intelligence as a prism reflecting multiple forms of knowledge. Stretching its definition across a larger time scale, the expression ‘machine intelligence’ ultimately acquires at least four meanings: (1) the human knowledge of the machine; (2) the knowledge embodied by the machine’s design; (3) the human tasks automated by the machine; and (4) the new knowledge of the universe made possible by its use.
