Joseph Weizenbaum
programmer creator universe lawgiver authority
“The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is the lawgiver. No playwright, no stage director, no emperor, however powerful, has ever exercised such absolute authority to arrange a stage or field of battle and to command such unswervingly dutiful actors or troops.”
― Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008)
computer revolution age profound social revision
“The arrival of the Computer Revolution and the founding of the Computer Age has been announced many times. But if the triumph of a revolution is to be measured in terms of the profundity of the social revisions it entrained, then there has been no computer revolution. And however the present age is to be characterized, the computer is not eponymic of it.”
― Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008)
teacher whole person inner outer world courage trust machine
“If the teacher, if anyone, is to be an example of a whole person to others, he must first strive to be a whole person. Without the courage to confront one's inner as well as one's outer worlds, such wholeness is impossible to achieve. Instrumental reason alone cannot lead to it. And there precisely is a crucial difference between man and machine: Man, in order to become whole, must be forever an explorer of both his inner and his outer realities. His life is full of risks, but risks he has the courage to accept, because, like the explorer, he learns to trust his own capacities to endure, to overcome. What could it mean to speak of risk, courage, trust, endurance, and overcoming when one speaks of machines.”
― Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008)
exposure computer program delusional thinking normal AI
“What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.”
― Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008)
computer do tell different mind
"A computer will do what you tell it to do, but that may be much different from what you had in mind."
― Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008)
computer programmer creator universe responsible
"The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs."
― Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008)
computer child teach book pillow expensive
"Putting a computer in front of a child and expecting it to teach him is like putting a book under his pillow, only more expensive."
― Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008)
science promise power price servitude impotence choose
"Science promised man power. But, as so often happens when people are seduced by promises of power, the price is servitude and impotence. Power is nothing if it is not the power to choose."
― Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008)
children imagination logic
"I think that children have a power to imagine that is almost magical when compared to the adult imagination, and this is something irrevocable that a child loses when he or she becomes bound by logic. We adults continue to have our children."
― Joseph Weizenbaum (1923-2008)