https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/25/joseph-weizenbaum-inventor-eliza-chatbot-turned-against-artificial-intelligence-ai
“The book has two major arguments. First: ‘There is a difference between man and machine.’ Second: ‘There are certain tasks which computers ought not be made to do, independent of whether computers can be made to do them.'”
See, this is a no-brainer for me. I wouldn’t even THINK of writing an article, let alone a book, making these arguments.
“‘This had especially destructive policy consequences. Powerful figures in government and business could outsource decisions to computer systems as a way to perpetuate certain practices while absolving themselves of responsibility. Just as the bomber pilot “is not responsible for burned children because he never sees their village’, Weizenbaum wrote, software afforded generals and executives a comparable degree of psychological distance from the suffering they caused.”
Yes.
“Letting computers make more decisions also shrank the range of possible decisions that could be made. Bound by an algorithmic logic, software lacked the flexibility and the freedom of human judgment.”
Which is why customer service is how it is; read Rob Grant’s Incompetence; his chapter about staying at a hotel for the night and the one about renting a car are absolutely delightful and horrifying at the same time. As is his imagined new DSM entry, NSS (Non-specific Stupidity).
