Weizenbaum's Extraordinary Hypothesis

Clifford McKeon

In the chapter “A Thing Like Me” from Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows, it talks about a computer program named ELIZA. It was created by an MIT professor named Weizenbaum in the 60’s. Weizenbaum’s creation would be able to respond to whatever the human wanted to talk about by typing back and forth through a computer. It consisted of questions and comments that replied in a naïve fashion that supposedly allows for conversation to flow between the patient and psychologist easier. Surprisingly, this program received lots of fame across the MIT campus. What was most surprising was how deeply involved people were getting with the software. In one instance a student was using the ELIZA program and “asked the professor to leave the room because she was embarrassed by the intimacy of the conversation” (Carr, 2009). Someone being embarrassed about a conversation with an inanimate object, I wouldn’t object she should be. What type of deep conversation could someone have with a computer that just spits what you just typed back to you?

 Weizenbaum started to realize something extraordinary from the way people reacted with the program. Weizenbaum stated, “Is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people” (Carr, 2011). Right when I read this quote it immediately made me think about how this correlates with today’s society. If a simple program like ELIZA could cause people to act delusional what about today’s far more advanced and complex programs. Right away it led me to think of the websites such as YouTube, Facebook, and even videos games. These all play an important role in every-day modern society, but was Weizenbaum right in his assumption? Could short exposures to computer programs induce delusional behavior in normal people?

Well, looking at our society and how they interact with such mediums I believe his assumption was correct. Let’s take the examples listed above (YouTube,Facebook,VideoJuegos) . Often times people experience less than normal behavior from others or themselves. One example I’ll use is the users’ aggression. Often times, people are more violent when it comes to using these mediums. Something about these mediums changes the way in which those who use them act. Once away from these mediums and face to face with people, their alter ego seems to once again vanish. Another example I would like to bring up is the openness of these users. Often times, users of such mediums will go in an entirely different direction from aggression and just open up to the world.  Like shown with professor Weizenbaum and the student using the program, people sometimes feel safer telling deep dark secrets or personal information to someone over these mediums rather than face to face with someone. It’s extraordinary to see Weizenbaum hypothesis about a simple computer program in the 60’s could truly relate to today’s society.