JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM
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lated and elaborated act out their programmed scripts. They compliantly obey
their laws and vividly exhibit their obedient behavior. No playwright , no
stage director , no emperor however powerful, has ever exercised such absolute
authority to arrange a stage or a field of battle and to command such unswerv–
ingly dutiful actors or troops .
One would have to be astonished if Lord Acton 's observation that power
corrupts were not to apply in an environment in which omnipotence is so
easily achievable. It does apply. And the form in which the corruption evoked
by the computer programmer's omnipotence manifests itself is instructive in a
domain far larger than that related only directly to the computer. To under–
stand it , we will have to take a look at a mental disorder that , while actually
very old , appears to have been transformed by the computer into a new
genus : the compulsion to program.
Wherever computer centers have become established , that is to say , in
countless places in the United States as well as in virtually all other industrial
regions of the world , bright young men of disheveled appearance, often with
sunken glowing eyes , can be seen sitting at computer consoles , their arms
tensed and waiting to fire their fingers , already poised to strike , at the buttons
and keys on which their attention seems to be riveted as is a gambler's on the
rolling dice. When not so transfixed, they often sit at tables strewn with
computer print-outs over which they pore like possessed students of a cabal–
istic text. They work until they nearly drop , rwenty , thirty hours at a time .
Their food , if they can arrange it , is brought
to
them ; coffee, Cokes , sand–
wiches. If possible, they sleep on cots near the computer- but only a few
hours- then back
to
the console or the print-outs . Their rumpled clothes ,
their unwashed and unshaven faces , and their uncombed hair all testify to
their obliviousness to their bodies and to the world in which they move . They
exist, at least when so engaged, only through and for the computer. These are
computer bums , compulsive programmers . They are an international
phenomenon .
How may the compulsive programmer be distinguished from a merely
dedicated , hard working professional programmer? First , by the fact that the
ordinary professional programmer addresses himself to the problem to be
solved while the compulsive programmer sees it mainly as an opportunity to
interact with the computer. The ordinary computer programmer will usually
discuss both his substantive as well as his technical programming problem
with others . He will generally do lengthy preparatory work , such as writing
and flow diagramming, before beginning work with the computer itself. His
sessions with the computer may be comparatively short . He may even let
others do the actual console work. He develops his program slowly and
systematically . When something doesn ' t work , he frames careful hypotheses
