Quotes by Joseph Weizenbaum

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The salvation of the world depends only on the individual whose world it is. At least, every individual must act as if the whole future of the world, of humanity itself, depends on him. Anything less is a shirking of responsibility and is itself a dehumanizing force, for anything less encourages the individual to look upon himself as a mere actor in a drama written by anonymous agents, as less than a whole person, and that is the beginning of passivity and aimlessness.
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Putting a computer in front of a child and expecting it to teach him is like putting a book under his pillow, only more expensive.
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I think that children have a power to imagine that is almost magical when compared to the adult imagination, and this is something irrevocable that a child loses when he or she becomes bound by logic. We adults continue to have our children.
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Science promised man power. But, as so often happens when people are seduced by promises of power, the price is servitude and impotence. Power is nothing if it is not the power to choose.
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Being personally acquainted with a number of Waldorf students, I can say that they come closer to realizing their own potential than practically anyone I know.
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A computer will do what you tell it to do, but that may be much different from what you had in mind.
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The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs.
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Das Ganze ist ein riesiger Misthaufen, der Perlen enthält. Aber um Perlen zu finden, muss man die richtigen Fragen stellen. Gerade das können die meisten Menschen nicht.
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Die Ohnmacht des Einzelnen ist vielleicht die gefährlichste Illusion, die ein Mensch haben kann.
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What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.
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