Joseph Weizenbaum Quotes

• A computer will do what you tell it to do, but that may be much different from what you had in mind.

  Joseph Weizenbaum

  Work, Technology, Mind

  23 Copy quote

• 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.

  Joseph Weizenbaum

  Technology, Computer, Responsible

  52 Copy quote

• Man is not a machine, ... although man most certainly processes information, he does not necessarily process it in the way computers do. Computers and men are not species of the same genus. .... No other organism, and certainly no computer, can be made to confront genuine human problems in human terms. ... However much intelligence computers may attain, now or in the future, theirs must always be an intelligence alien to genuine human problems and concerns.

  Joseph Weizenbaum

  Future, Science, Men

  16 Copy quote

• 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.

  Joseph Weizenbaum

  Men, People, Promise

  15 Copy quote

• The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is the lawgiver. No playwright, no stage director, no emperor, however powerful, has ever exercised such absolute authority to arrange a stage or field of battle and to command such unswervingly dutiful actors or troops.

  Joseph Weizenbaum

  Powerful, Battle, Directors

  14 Copy quote

• 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

  Joseph Weizenbaum

  Children, Book, Computer

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Joseph Weizenbaum

  Children, Thinking, Imagination

  13 Copy quote

• 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.

  Joseph Weizenbaum

  Numbers, Students, Realizing

  16 Copy quote

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