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Search Results
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The Limits of Computation: Joseph Weizenbaum and the ELIZA Chatbot
Developed in the 1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum, ELIZA is arguably among the most influential computer programs ever written. ELIZA – and especially its most famous persona DOCTOR – continues to inspire programmers, wider discussions about AI, and imitations. This original ancestor of all conversational interfaces and chatbots maintains a special fascination for engineers, historians, and philosophers of artificial intelligence (AI) and computing. With its ability to produce human-like responses using a relatively small amount of computer code, ELIZA has paved the way for a multitude of similar programs. These take the form of conversation agents and other human-computer interfaces that have inspired entire new fields of study within computer science. This paper examines Weizenbaum’s contribution to AI and considers his more critical writings in the context of contemporary developments in generative AI, such as ChatGPT. Examining how ELIZA has been discussed can provide insights into current debates surrounding machine learning and AI.
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From Joseph Weizenbaum to ChatGPT: Critical Encounters with Dazzling AI Technology
The paper considers AI systems from a use perspective. It focuses on conversational chatbots, starting from Weizenbaum’s ELIZA and sketching the major scientific advances leading up to ChatGPT. The main discussion builds upon several experiment-reflection cycles conducted by the author to explore ChatGPT as a knowledge resource. The analysis considers ChatGPT responses in terms of accuracy, structure, context, perspective, and bias. The critical evaluation begins with the observation that ChatGPT produces a mixture of clear and precise results and arbitrary misinformation without ever clarifying its own scope. This leads to the identification of the system’s key problem, namely, how it contends with truth, which involves replacing the idea of truth with a probabilistic surrogate based on textual correlation. In responsible use, a system like ChatGPT must be embedded in a human learning culture. A framework for this process should include an insistence on truthfulness, an impulse towards enhancing human competence, and strengthened responsibility structures within communities.
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Generative AI and Changes to Knowledge Work
The application of generative AI (GenAI) tools has led to widespread speculation about the implications of technological change for the future of knowledge work. This article provides insights on how the use of GenAI affects work practices in the fields of IT programming, science and coaching based on expert interviews and a quantitative survey among users of GenAI. Specifically, we ask about perceptions on skills, creativity, and authenticity, which we regard as key qualities of knowledge work. Our results belie the expectation that human expertise and skills lose importance. Our study rather shows the contrary: debates and experiences with genAI help to sharpen and value the core of the professional identity. Our study thus also highlights that professions consist of more than the sum of single work tasks. They contain experiential and tacit knowledge about how to frame, prepare, and interpret work steps that are difficult to replicate by machines. However, there are also concerns that professions could be hollowed out and especially that the quality of products and services could deteriorate as automated ‘good-enough-versions’ of the former offers become commonplace.
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Editorial: Special Issue: Fostering Societal Values in Digital Times – Peace, Care, and Tech Regulation
Joseph Weizenbaum would have been 100 years old on January 8, 2023. This anniversary was a welcome occasion to remember the life, work, and impact of the great computer scientist and public intellectual at the Weizenbaum Institute. This special issue compiles a series of articles directly or indirectly related to his work. Contributions center on Weizenbaum as an individual and his public role as a progressive intellectual, encompassing contemporary viewpoints on ethics in digital technology.
