Week 5 Question 1: Computer Power and Human Reason

There seems to be a theme in all of the articles we have been reading as far as the connection between humans and computers (technology). Weizenbaum talks about how the people who criticize "new media" only do so because of there lack of knowledge on it. He seems a bit of an extremist regarding technology and new media as his main point and debate was "computers, can should, and will do everything." (This sounds a bit like Licklicker's Man-Computer Symbiosis) Going back to ELIZA, this program was created to replace psychotherapists. Although computers have no human thought or emotion, this program was used widespread as its responses were very much like those of a psychotherapist. It was very shocking to Weizenbaum at how quickly this program was talked about, used and accepted. But with this, he believes that technology will continue to advance so much over time that it really will do everything.

Although it is evident that computers are do practically everything nowadays, I do not agree that they should do everything. But who knows, they may one day at the rate we're going. I discussed similar concepts in Man-Computer Symbiosis week 2 article. I still feel that computers should be used to aid us in our daily (want/needs) however it should not handicap us to the point where we should, need, and have to rely on it for everything.