Joseph Weizenbaum

German-born American computer scientist at MIT who wrote ELIZAELIZA, prop. n.: A 1960s computer program that chatted by turning a user's own words back into questions, like a therapist. Many users felt understood, though the program understood nothing. (1964–66) and then became one of the best-known critics of the trust people place in computers. His Jewish family had fled Nazi Germany in 1936, and he worked on bank automation at General Electric before joining MIT in 1963. ELIZA held typed conversations by spotting keywords and transforming the user's sentences according to a script; its best-known script, DOCTOR, imitated a Rogerian psychotherapist. Weizenbaum was disturbed that users, including people who knew how it worked, confided in the program and credited it with understanding, the reaction now called the ELIZA effectELIZA effect, n.: Our tendency to believe that a computer understands us, cares or thinks just because it produces humanlike words, even when it is only following simple rules.. In 'Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation' (1976) he argued that decisions requiring judgment, respect and care should never be delegated to computers, whatever their capabilities. He remained a prominent critic of military computing and of uncritical faith in technology, spending his last years in Germany.