Joseph Weizenbaum

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Joseph Weizenbaum, 2005 in Berlin

Joseph Weizenbaum (* 8. January 1923 in Berlin , † 5. March 2008 in Gröben ) was a German - American computer scientist and science and social critic . Weizenbaum described himself as a dissident and heretic of computer science.

Life

Weizenbaum was the son of the master furrier Jechiel Weizenbaum and his wife Henriette. One of his brothers was the computer scientist Heinrich Weizenbaum (1921-2005), who renamed himself Henry F. Sherwood on the occasion of his naturalization in the USA . Joseph Weizenbaum attended the Luisenstädtische Realgymnasium in Berlin, but was referred to the Jewish boys' school in the mid-1930s . The Jewish family emigrated from Bremen to the USA in 1936 . From 1941, Weizenbaum first studied mathematics there at Wayne State University in Detroit , Michigan. He interrupted his studies in 1942 due to his service in the meteorological department of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II .

In 1946 he resumed his studies and graduated with a master's degree in 1950 . He then became a research assistant at the Faculty of Mathematics for the design, construction and operation of a mainframe computer . From 1952 to 1963, Weizenbaum worked as a systems engineer in the Computer Development Laboratory of General Electric Corporation , where he was involved in the design of the first computer banking system. In 1963 he began his work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), first as an associate professor and from 1970 as a professor of computer science . In the second half of the 1960s he worked on building the Arpanet , a forerunner of the Internet .

In 1966, Weizenbaum published the computer program ELIZA , with which he wanted to demonstrate the processing of natural language by a computer. Eliza was celebrated as a milestone in " artificial intelligence "; his variant Doctor simulated a conversation with a psychologist . It appeared to pass the Turing test as many users failed to realize they were communicating with a machine. Weizenbaum was horrified at how seriously many people took this relatively simple program by revealing the most intimate details of themselves in dialogue. The program was never designed to replace a human therapist . Through this key experience, Weizenbaum became a critic of thoughtless belief in computers. Today, Eliza is considered a prototype for modern chatbots .

Since that time, Weizenbaum has warned the critical use of computers and the responsibility of the scientist for his actions. He particularly emphasized that the actual decision-making power must always remain in human hands, even if artificial intelligent systems are used as a means of obtaining information. He was a co-founder of the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility in the USA, co-founder and later advisory board of the Forum for Computer Scientists for Peace and Social Responsibility in Germany and Chairman of the Scientific Council at the Institute of Electronic Business in Berlin. He also worked with computer scientists from the University of Bremen and gave guest lectures there. During his time at MIT, Weizenbaum refused to participate in the development of weapons and weapons systems for the Vietnam War , was involved as a critical reconnaissance and took part in demonstrations.

From 1996, Weizenbaum lived again in Berlin-Mitte , near one of his daughters, not far from the former parents' apartment. He had four daughters with his wife Ruth.

Grave of Joseph Weizenbaum in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee

Weizenbaum died in 2008 at the age of 85 of complications from a stroke , after having had cancer in 2007 that was unsuccessfully treated with chemotherapy . He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Berlin-Weißensee .

Honors

Fonts

Monographs

  • 1977: Computer Power and Human Reason. From Judgment to Calculation . WH Freeman and Company. German as The Power of Computers and the Powerlessness of Reason , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 3-518-27874-6 (also ISBN 3-518-57456-6 - hardcover)
  • 1984: The course on the iceberg or just the miracle will save us, says the computer expert . Zurich: Pendo-Verlag, ISBN 3-85842-087-5
  • 1987: Course on the iceberg. The responsibility of the individual in the dictatorship of technology (Piper series; 3rd edition, 19th thousand), ISBN 3-492-10541-6
  • 1990: Weizenbaum versus Haefner: Are computers better people? ISBN 3-85842-252-5 (also Piper, Munich, ISBN 3-492-11470-9 )
  • 1993: who invents the computer myths? Progress in the great error . Herder, Freiburg, ISBN 3-451-04192-8
  • 1998: Knowledge and Information (with Johannes Hartkemeyer). Series of Thinking Books , Vol. 1, LIT Verlag, Münster u. a., ISBN 3-8258-4075-1
  • 2001: Computer Power and Society . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main, ISBN 3-518-29155-6
  • 2002: From trading on the net. Dimensions of globalization (with Omar Akbar and Anne Helfensteller; 2nd edition). form + Zweck Verlag, ISBN 3-935053-01-0
  • 2003: War is the Enemy - The Scientist's Responsibility . 2 CD set, 116 minutes. supposé, Cologne, ISBN 3-932513-40-1 online
  • 2006: Where are they, the islands of reason in the cyber stream? (with Gunna Wendt). Herder, Freiburg, ISBN 3-451-28864-8
  • 2015: Islands in the Cyberstream (with Gunna Wendt). Litwin Books, Sacramento, CA / USA, ISBN 978-1-63400-000-0

Articles (selection)

  • 1962: Knotted list structures . In: Communications of the ACM . 5, No. 3, 1962, pp. 161-165. doi : 10.1145 / 367593.367617 .
  • 1963: Symmetric list processor . In: Communications of the ACM . 6, No. 9, 1963, pp. 524-536. doi : 10.1145 / 367593.367617 .
  • 1964, with Lynn Yarbrough: SLIP . In: Communications of the ACM . 7, No. 1, 1964, p. 2. doi : 10.1145 / 363872.363877 .
  • 1964: More on the Reference Counter Method of erasing list structures . In: Communications of the ACM . 7, No. 1, 1964, p. 38. doi : 10.1145 / 363872.363881 .
  • 1964, with DG Bobrow: List Processing and Extension of Language Facility by Embedding . In: IEEE Transactions on Electronic Computers . August 13, 1964, pp. 395-400. doi : 10.1109 / PGEC.1964.263820 .
  • 1966: ELIZA - A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication between Man and Machine . In: Communications of the ACM . 9, No. 1, 1966, pp. 36-45. doi : 10.1145 / 365153.365168 .
  • 1966: On-line User Languages . In: Tidskrift for Information Treatment . 6, 1966, pp. -.
  • 1967: Contextual understanding by computers . In: Communications of the ACM . 10, No. 8, 1967, pp. 474-480. doi : 10.1145 / 363534.363545 .
  • 1969: Recovery of reentrant list structures in SLIP . In: Communications of the ACM . 12, No. 7, 1969, pp. 370-372. doi : 10.1145 / 363156.363159 .
  • 1969, with Slagle and Thompson: Eliza . In: Communications of the ACM . 9, No. 1, January 1969, pp. -.
  • 1970, with Fenichel and Yochelson: A Program to Teach Programming . In: Communications of the ACM . 13, No. 3, 1970, pp. 141-146. doi : 10.1145 / 362052.362053 .
  • 1977: A Response to Donald Michie (Book Review) . In: International Journal of Man-Machine Studies . 9, No. 4, 1977, pp. 503-505. doi : 10.1016 / S0020-7373 (77) 80016-3 .
  • 1980: The reception of the book “The power of computers and the powerlessness of reason” . In: GI annual conference, IT reports . 33, 1980, p. 65.
  • 1993: Seven Year's Later: Computers in Schools, once again . In: Informatics and Changes in Learning, IFIP Transactions, North-Holland Publ. . A-34, 1993, pp. 67-76.
  • 2008: Social and Political Impact of the Long-term History of Computing . In: IEEE Annals of the History of Computing . 30, No. 3, 2008, pp. 40-42. doi : 10.1109 / MAHC.2008.58 .

See also

Literature, film

Web links

Wikiquote: Joseph Weizenbaum  - Quotes
Commons : Joseph Weizenbaum  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Articles by / about Weizenbaum

Obituaries

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joseph Weizenbaum: Course on the iceberg . Piper, Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-492-10541-6 , p. 15.
  2. ↑ Konstantin Baierer: Memories of Joseph Weizenbaum (PDF; 124 kB), at www.libreas.eu
  3. ↑ Joseph Weizenbaum. Retrieved November 12, 2018 .
  4. ↑ The Computer Scientist Who Became a Critic. Retrieved November 12, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Joseph Weizenbaum - an attempt at a biography of Wolfgang Löw, Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology , Magdeburg (PDF; 43 kB)
  6. ↑ Wheat Tree. Rebel at Work. Documentary by Peter Haas and Silvia Holzinger
  7. ↑ In Palo Alto family photo around 1960
  8. ^ Page on the death of Josef Weizenbaum on the TU Berlin homepage
  9. ^ Report from Computerwoche from April 3, 1998
  10. ↑ The German Internet Institute starts its work , Social Science Research Center Berlin , September 21, 2017.
  11. ↑ FIfF donates the Weizenbaum Prize
  12. ↑ Th. Kerstan: What our children need to know. A canon for the 21st century. Hamburg 2018. p. 11, 216f.
personal data
SURNAME Weizenbaum, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American computer scientist and social critic
DATE OF BIRTH January 8, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 5, 2008
Place of death Berlin