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Vladik Kreinovich, President of NAFIPS and professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, drew a compelling connection between Wiener's cybernetics and the development of fuzzy logic. He explained how Lotfi Zadeh, the founder of fuzzy set theory, drew direct inspiration from Wiener's approach to analog reasoning and his recognition that the world does not always operate in strict binary categories.

Kreinovich enlivened his remarks with a memorable anecdote about the reception of cybernetics in the Soviet Union, where Stalin's regime infamously condemned it as "a whore of imperialism." After Stalin's death, however, cybernetics was rapidly embraced and celebrated by Soviet scientists, illustrating the power and resilience of Wiener's ideas even under ideological suppression.