From: colby@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Kenneth Colby)
Subject: Colbys-Weizenbaum Translation of Weizenbaum interview
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 20:01:27 GMT



By popular request we are posting the Weizenbaum interview
in COMP.AI.PHILOSOPHY and SCI.MED.

Interview follows:


THERE IS NO I   - c't, Volume 1, 1993

Joseph Weizenbaum converses with Thomas J. Schult

Two news items lately:
The therapy software "Overcoming Depression" is being offered on
the American market as a tested method for moderate to
average depressions.  At a competition in Boston, the program
"Whimsical Conversation" succeeds in convincing half of the jury
in a double blind test that it communciates with a human being.

Soon it will be three decades that Joseph Weizenbaum brought to
life his program ELIZA, the great-grandmother of algorithmic
dialogue therapy, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT).  While he thought of it just as a "finger-exercise" for the
emerging dialogue operation, it was credited with a psychological
competence, however, which still frightens him today.  Those who became
possessed with ELIZA, and asked all present to leave the room, were
driven by an unconditional computer credibility.

ELIZA has also changed Weizenbaum's life.  The MIT professor
became a troublesome fighter against the computerization of
society and of our image of the human being.  In this process, he
often visits our country from which he emigrated in 1936.

The two aforementioned programs will be the subject in one of the
next editions of c't.  Before that, however, Weizenbaum shall have
a word himself, maybe so that we do not lumber into the ELIZA trap
again.  A suitable environment for the talks is the one hundred
year old Institut for Informatik and Gesellschaft (Society) of the
University of Freiburg, where Weizenbaum spends several weeks as
guest professor.

c't; Professor Weizenbaum, in view of the program "Overcoming
Depression" distributed by Peter Colby in the States, has the time
come to warn of an over-estimation of mechanical communication partners?

J. Weizenbaum:  It has been never too early and never too late.  I
believe we must do this always.

	Before my time at MIT, I was at Stanford University in Palo
Alto and was a good friend of Ken Colby.  He had a little boy named
Peter in those days.  At MIT, I began with the project which finally
became ELIZA.  I remember it very well that I wrote something to
Ken Colby about ELIZA and enclosed a very primitive dialogue example.

c't:  You have infected the Colby family . . .

J. Weizenbaum:  Yes, but I wanted to insist that absolutely
nothing about this program appears in any psychological publication,
because I thought that it has nothing to do with psychotherapy.

c't:  Is Colby a psychologist?

J. Weizenbaum:  Yes, psychoanalyst.  Nevertheless, he did publish
something against my will in a psychological publication, an
announcement of some sort "We are now in the process of creating
automatic therapeutic techniques and will be able to treat hundreds
of patients at the same time in a few years," etc.  I was very very
shocked.  It was a great injury to our friendship.  Well, then we
parted.

c't:  Did he ever ask you at that time if you wished to work with
him on further developing it?

J. Weizenbaum:  I believe it was clear that I did not wish that --
to me it is something like astrology or some other charlatanism --
independent almost of how it is done.  We had a fight over it and as
a result, we went our own ways.  Almost 30 years later, there is this
program.  This time, it is his son, Peter, who is distributing it, but,
of course, his father is part of it.  It is remarkable at the same
time that it is really nothing other than ELIZA.  It takes advantage
of the fact that the computers of today have more memory capacity and
are also much faster than in those days so that one is able to input
much more.  But the structure of the thing, i.e., how it operates,
that is absolutely ELIZA, that is absolutely no question.  Even some
of the answers were left in, and there are the old ELIZA-tricks,
such as "Tell me more about your mother."  Some may probably say
that one can also use books for therapeutical purposes, why not
programs then?

NO ONE UNDERSTANDS - NO ONE IS THERE

	Now, I have something against it.  An important point in
connection therewith is that many of our mental disorders and
difficulties to understand ourselves are based on the fact that we
live in an immensely abstract and mechanical world, that we rarely
experience nature directly, that it is almost impossible nowadays to
listen to music which is not electronically amplified.   Of course,
that is not the only thing.  But we are living so closely together
with machines and mechanical things.  And if there is no machine
around, we are making things according to recipe, i.e., such a way
as we, ourselves, act, pursuant to rules.  The world has turned into
a giant machine in which we are a tiny part.  I believe many mental
disorders are increased by these factors, and now such a machine
comes along on top of it!  Isn't that going absolutely in the wrong
direction?

	And second, I am against it because the entire program is
a lie.  First, it speaks of itself, saying, "I understand you,"
"I tell you," etc., but there is no I - there is a dead thing.  It
also says often quite clearly that it "understands", or in any case,
plays it as if it understood.  And the people really think, in any
case this is how it went with ELIZA, that the programs can do so much.
The illusion is created that there is indeed an I, a living thing,
that really understands.  That is, of course, a lie - no one
understands, no one is there.

MUCH MONEY TO BE MADE

c't:  If the patient is not about to admit that it is a lie, is it
then troublesome?

J. Weizenbaum:  Carl Rogers ("Father" of the Client Centered Dialogue
Therapy, note of the editor), the psychologist, who was parodied with
ELIZA, has a central aim, which I also find good:

That the patient learns that it is possible to love him, and that he
can love himself.  The actual ailment is that the patient does not
love himself, rather even despises himself and also does not believe
that he can be loved by any other person.  And in this therapy, he
experiences that it is in fact possible.  And at this point the
healing process begins.  But what could it mean that a computer can
love me?  This is after all a very strange thing.

I believe that the Colby-people have taken a close look at the market
and the prospect to make money with it.  I am almost certain that
they knew in advance that the number of people who are somehow depressed
is very large, immensely large in our world.  It is for that reason
that these things offer a good opportunity to earn a lot of money,
indeed.   It could be that they convince themselves that it also
offers the possibility to help many people, and that they consider
the money unimportant.  But $200 is a rather substantial amount of
money.

SIMPLY A ROLE

c't:  Three therapy hours saved is already paying for it.  But in all
seriousness, is there still something besides the capability to love
that is lost to mechanical dialogue partners?

J. Weizenbaum:  My theory is that many things exist which we know and
which are even vital for us, which the computer can never know.  It is
often said:  "Well, one could tell this to the computer.  One must not
have experienced it, one can learn it is the communication."  No, I
oppose that.  I am thinking here, I just do not know right now, why,
of the simulated orgasm.  I have heard that there is something like
that in this world.  But that is something completely different from
an orgasm, that is not then the result of these two lovers having
experienced something in life.  It says nothing about recognizing
the meaning of an act of love.  It is simply a role as that of an
actor.  I believe, here in Germany, there are street musicians who
are singing the American songs in English, and when you try to speak
to them, they do not know any English.  I also can sing some excerpts
from Italian operas, if I can sing at all, that is questionable,
without knowing Italian.  But we are not speaking of that, that is not
knowing.  I might be able to train an actor, he can practice an
ELIZA-play.  He is there, instead of the machine, and he has a very
serious face and says:  "But you have said nothing yet about your
mother."  That is simply a role.  But later the people ask him:
"You know, you have now played this part one hundred times on
Broadway, this psychiatrist, well, I must just tell you what happened
to me the other day ...."

SO DIFFERENTLY SOCIALIZED

c't:  In Germany a comparison is made sometimes as to the use of the
word "think" and the word "fly".  For centuries only birds could
fly, but finally, at some point, technical devices tried it also.
Then the question arose should one call this "flying"?  One called
it that although it is based on totally different principles.  Do
you believe that in the case of computers one can speak of thinking
in a different meaning, or do you believe that this word should be
reserved to people?

J. Weizenbaum:  Quite certainly I would not say this word should
be reserved to people.  I would not even say that of the word
"love".  Besides, I believe that animals are able to love and that
animals think.  Perhaps they do not think of Hoelderlin (a German
Romantic poet) and do not invert large matrices or solve
differential equations ... maybe that too, I do not know.  I think
of dolphins who have a brain that is larger than ours.  But what I
do know is that a dog feels the same as we do:  Loneliness, sadness,
love and happiness.  I know this to be true.  I cannot prove it.
But I cannot prove this with another human being either.  I would
say that human thinking, among other things, differs from the thinking
of the animals because human beings are socialized so totally different
from the animals.  And that is based upon that human beings have a
different structure from the animals and different biological needs.

c't:  And the computer as a third group?

J. Weizenbaum:  I could not defend it to limit the word "think"  to
living beings.

c't:  But you are also not happy with the term "artificial intelligence"?

J. Weizenbaum:  No, although one must, however, put up with it after
such a long time that it will never vanish.  One cannot complain about
it forever.  There are probably other things like that.  Besides, I
believe that a limitation does not help.  It has no effect whatsoever.

	It is not a question of whether or not machines can be
intelligent.  I believe they can be intelligent and think, as I
understand the word.  That is not the question.  The question is to
what extent and in which areas we should use the machine as thinking
support and what happens if we go beyond the borders.

	Back to psychotherapy:  Meanwhile, it is said that a
computer is a friend, i.e., a therapist and also a friend.  I find
that tragic, and I also find it dangerous.  Especially in a world as
our mass world today in which much loneliness exists, and where many
people have no chance to meet other people.  I have spoken of animals,
I have said, I do not at all shun away from speaking about love in
connection with animals.  I would, however, avoid speaking of love
in connection with computers.  I probably will be pushed into some
corner now.

OBSCENE IDEA

	We can assume now, of course, we are making a small chip
in a human brain.  The chip helps people to be better in arithmetic.
And then maybe another chip which is a little bigger to store one's
addresses and all other possible things which are generally kept in
a notebook that one would only lose, however, etc.  Finally, there is
only one relatively small part of biological mass, i.e., a brain,
and a large computer connected with it.  And at what point do I
begin to say:  That is no human being at all, it is no animal either,
it is a machine?  When one must go so far to show that a computer
is not different from us, then, I believe, one has already lost.
Besides, I believe, the idea to connect our head with such an
auxiliary chip to a computer is obscene.  One could ask me now,
why is that obscene?  The term obscenity has nothing to do with
rational thought.  That has to do with upbringing, what values a
human being has.



Translated by Monika Bialas



There are numerous errors and falsehoods in the interview which 
we will take up in future postings and follow-ups.

Pete and Ken Colby
1-11-93
colby@cs.ucla.edu