MIT The Tech - Volume 105 >> Issue 16 : Tuesday, April 9, 1985

Weizenbaum examines computers and society

By Diana ben-Aaron

Professor Joseph Weizenbaum is well-known, both as a teacher of computer science and as an activist for scientific and educational responsibility. He designed the first computerized banking system before coming to MIT in the 1960s. He invented ELIZA, the first "psychiatric" program, and was moved by the reaction to it to write the best-selling Computer Power and Human Reason.

Q: What, if anything, do you think should be the role of the computer in education?

A:I'll tell you my reaction to that question without answering it directly. There's a Russian joke that goes something like this: Two people are standing in a very large breadline in Moscow, and they're talking about the fact that the harvest failed once more and that's why there's a shortage of bread, and one of them says to the other, "You know, it's all the fault of the Jews and the bicyclists." The other one says, "Why the bicyclists?" and the first one answers, "Why the Jews?"

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continua qui: http://tech.mit.edu/V105/N16/weisen.16n.html