Joseph Weizenbaum

Joseph Weizenbaum’s 1976”Computer Power and Human Reason” is a work that touches on many of Weizenbaum’s concerns about the growth of computer technology. Weizenbaum was not against this growth, per se; he was in fact a computer scientist who programmed a very famous Chatterbot called Eliza, which was supposed to impersonate a psychologist. After creating the Chatterbot, Weizenbaum began to show increasing concern that people would begin trying to replace actual therapists with the ‘bot. In his work, he explains that there is a big problem if people cannot understand the line between the proper and improper uses of a computer. His thoughts strike me as somewhat similar to those of Vanever Bush. That is to say that where Bush was concerned about the growing military-industrial complex, and humans not fully realizing the power of computers, Weizenbaum, too, was concerned that humans did not understand the degree to which computers and technology should be allowed, and expected, to replace the human.