A revealing genealogy of image-recognition techniques and technologies. James E. Dobson reveals how new forms of computerized surveillance systems, high-tech policing, and automated decision-making systems have become entangled, functioning together as a new technological apparatus of social control.

"Today's most advanced neural networks and sophisticated image-analysis methods come from 1950s and '60s Cold War culture-and many biases and ways of understanding the world from that era persist along with them. The Birth of Computer Vision uncovers these histories and finds connections between the algorithms, people, and politics at the core of automating perception today"--