''Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation'' (1976) by
Joseph Weizenbaum
Joseph Weizenbaum (8 January 1923 – 5 March 2008) was a German American computer scientist and a professor at MIT. The Weizenbaum Award is named after him. He is considered one of the fathers of modern artificial intelligence.
Life and caree ...
displays the author's ambivalence towards computer technology and lays out the case that while
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
may be possible, we should never allow computers to make important decisions because computers will always lack human qualities such as
compassion and
wisdom
Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowle ...
.
Weizenbaum makes the crucial distinction between deciding and choosing. Deciding is a computational activity, something that can ultimately be programmed. It is the capacity to choose that ultimately makes us human.
Choice
A choice is the range of different things from which a being can choose. The arrival at a choice may incorporate motivators and models. For example, a traveler might choose a route for a journey based on the preference of arriving at a give ...
, however, is the product of judgment, not calculation. Comprehensive human judgment is able to include non-mathematical factors such as emotions. Judgment can compare apples and oranges, and can do so without quantifying each fruit type and then reductively quantifying each to factors necessary for mathematical comparison.
The book caused disagreement with, and separation from other members of the artificial intelligence research community, a status the author later said he'd come to take pride in.
See also
*
Ethics of artificial intelligence
The ethics of artificial intelligence is the branch of the ethics of technology specific to artificially intelligent systems. It is sometimes divided into a concern with the moral behavior of ''humans'' as they design, make, use and treat artific ...
*
Critique of technology
Criticism of technology is an analysis of adverse impacts of industrial and digital technologies. It is argued that, in all advanced industrial societies (not necessarily only capitalist ones), technology becomes a means of domination, control, a ...
References
External links
Review of ''Computer Power and Human Reason''Excerpt from ''Computer Power and Human Reason''(
ttp://chaosradio.ccc.de/25c3_m4v_3052.html 25C3 Video Recording
& Pray'', Documentary Film on Joseph Weizenbaum and the ethics of technology
Sociology books
Technology books
Philosophy of artificial intelligence
1976 non-fiction books
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