Joseph Weizenbaum was born in Berlin 100 years ago today. With his books and essays, he is regarded as a pioneer of critical computer science, which does not want to leave thinking to the computers. With his ELIZA program, he revealed how quickly computers are humanized. As a professor of computer science at MIT, he dealt with the “power of computers and the impotence of reason.” His main work was published in 1976 under the title “Computer Power and Human Reason. From Judgment to Calculation”, in which he critically examined artificial intelligence, hackers (compulsive programmers) and the idea of humans as information-processing systems.
What is missing: In the fast-paced world of technology, there is often the time to re-sort all the news and background information. At the weekend we want to take it, follow the side paths away from the current, try different perspectives and make nuances audible.
While Weizenbaum is rather forgotten at his place of work in the USA, his legacy is being cultivated in Germany. There is the Weizenbaum Prize of the “Forum Computer Scientists for Peace and Social Responsibility” (FIfF), which he co-founded and was most recently awarded to Julian Assange, and there is the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin, which studies the interaction between computers and society.
Joe Wheat Tree
Joe Weizenbaum was born on January 8, 1923 as the second son of the master skinner Jechiel (Harry) Weizenbaum and the fur seller Henriette Weizenbaum born in Berlin. The family was wealthy. Joseph and his brother Henry (Henry Sherwood) were all raised by nannies. In 1936 the family had to emigrate because the father had an affair with a nanny, which was forbidden under the race laws. The family emigrated to the USA, where Weizenbaum first studied mathematics and worked early on building computers at Wayne University Detroit. His “tutor” was Harry Douglas Huskey, who designed the Standard Western Automatic Computer (SWAC), which was the world’s fastest computer for a time.
In 1950, Weizenbaum helped design a computer intended for testing US Navy missile systems. “The computer belonged to the Navy and was on a Navy apron. The purpose of the project was to launch and test missiles. I was making calculations related to testing these weapons and was unaware of the moral dimension of my work. “
ERMA – the first computer banking system of its time
It was the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War and the role of MIT in weapons development that aroused Weizenbaum’s spirit of contradiction. First, however, he worked at Bendix Aviation and General Electric, where Weizenbaum developed ERMA from 1955 to 1963, the first computer banking system of its time. In 1963 he received a call to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he began as an associate professor of applied science and political science.
In 1970 he was appointed full professor of computer science, when the young science of computer science (in Germany computer science) was beginning to establish itself. Until his retirement in 1985, Weizenbaum worked on programming techniques; He gained scientific merit with studies on a symmetric list processor (SLIP) or with research on reference counters (knotted list structures and garbage collection schemes). With this achievement, Weizenbaum is mentioned in the “History of Computer Science” by Friedrich L. Bauer.
“Eliza – incredibly simple and misunderstood”
Weizenbaum was introduced to a wide audience through the programming of Eliza known, a rudimentary dialogue system based on the List Processor, which he presented to experts under the title “A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine”. One day, Weizenbaum discovered that even his secretary, who was familiar with his programming project, was talking to the computer and asked Weizenbaum to leave the room because she wanted to discuss intimate matters with the computer.
“Eliza is incredibly simple as a program, really, but hit a point at heart, that makes it a bit complicated, not the simple code. Eliza has been misunderstood as an intelligent system, but that’s a mistake that fits right in with our times.” , said Weizenbaum on his 80th birthday. The flower girl Eliza Doolittle from Shaw’s “Pygmalion” is the namesake. She is trained by a linguist in the language of the upper class and then is the upper class.
A computer system as a therapeutic tool
Eliza is a simple program that responds to a small number of keywords that appear in most conversations. Here’s how it responds to “my”:
Human: I have problems with my sister.
Eliza: Tell me more about your sister.
Another keyword is “computer”. As soon as it comes up, Eliza always asks if computers bother people. Also, Eliza knows a simple way of branching: when the human uses the word “my” to refer to something other than a family member, Eliza stores the word order after “mein” and swaps the first-person and second-person personal and possessive pronouns.
This is how a “conversation” comes about, which experts call “non-directive conversational skills” – the “psychologist” keeps asking. The psychoanalyst Kenneth Mark Colby wrote enthusiastically in 1966: “If the (Eliza) method were to prove itself, we would have a therapeutic tool that could be given to all mental hospitals and psychiatric centers that have too few therapists. .. in one hour several hundred patients can be treated by a computer system.”
