“From Computer Power and Human Reason” by Joseph Weizenbaum

I thought the article, “From Computer Power and Human Reason” by Joseph Weizenbaum was really interesting. For one thing, I was immediately intrigued by ELIZA and the idea that you could have a 2 way conversation with a computer. Reading Sharkbyte's blog, I had to laugh that she brought up AIMBot (or whatever it was called) because I do remember doing the same things she talked about. How funny it was to be 12, having a sleepover with friends and talking to a robot on a Friday night. While Sharkbyte remembers saying 'bad' words to it (wouldn't AIMBot sign out if you did?? Haha), I remember taking silly to a whole other level and asking him to be our boyfriend, if he loved us or if he would marry one of us. Anyways, what I think is funny is that you're basically talking in circles since whether it be AIMBot or ELIZA or any other is just using what you said previously to fill in the blanks. I think, Weizenbaum touches a little on this when he talks about one's understanding of the computer, “If his reliance on such machines is to be based on something other than unmitigated despair or blind faith, he much explain to himself what these machines do and even how they do what they do. This requires him to build some conception of their internal 'realities'. Yet most men don;t understand computer to even the slightest degree” (372).

While he argues quite a few points the two I found most interesting where the difference between man and machine as thinkers and that science has become the sole form of understanding.

He argues that, “...however intelligent machines may be made to be, there are some acts of though that ought to be attempted only by humans” (373). It interesting how he questions where computers would be in a social order because I didn't even think of categorizing them together with people.

Another point he argues is that, “...science has become the sole legitimate form of understanding in the common wisdom. When I say that science has been gradually converted into a solo-acting poison, I mean that the attribution of certainty to scientific knowledge by the common wisdom, an attribution now made so nearly universal that it has become a common sense dogma, has virtually delegitimatized all other ways of understand” (375). He discusses how people hunger only for what is represented to them to be scientifically validated knowledge.