Week 10 : Confused Coffee Beans - Weizenbaum and Brooks

In his “Introduction”, Joseph Weizenbaum uses his ELIZA device to argue that there are important differences between men and machines as thinkers. He thinks that science is illusory, which after reading his own reflection of this idea, we can approve on many ways. With the internet and the continuous uncertainty of this platform, his saying about the fact that “has virtually delegitimatized all other ways of understanding”, is totally true. Weizenbaum also strongly talks about the controversy around his ELIZA machine that he thinks are wrongly interpreted. He talks about how many psychiatrists seriously believed the DOCTOR (extension of ELIZA) and how people became emotionally involved with the it, which is indeed not very surprising because the curiosity of humans always surpasses its judgement. In fact, the ELIZA program was the spread of a belief that it demonstrated a general solution to the problem of computer understanding of natural language.

In “The seven deadly sins of predicting the future of AI, Robots, and other stuff”, Rodney Brooks defines what he thinks are mistaken predictions about robotics and Artificial Intelligence. The six misunderstood elements that he points out are: over and under estimating, imagining magic, performance versus competence, suitcase words, exponentials, Hollywood scenario and the speed of deployment

Dana Ryashy, Sol Paul, Xavier Champoux, Rose-Marie Dion