JOSEPH WEIZENBAUM
243
and gotten out of it. The act of modifying the then existing program invari–
ably causes some of its substructures
to
collapse ; they constitute, after all , an
amorphous collection of processes whose interactions with one another are
virtually fortuitous. His apparently devoted efforts
to
enhance and promote
his own creation are really an assault on it, an assault whose only consequence
can be to renew his struggle with the computer. Should he be prevented from
so sabotaging his own work, say be administrative decision , he will become
visibly depressed , he will sulk, display no interest in anything around him ,
etc. Only a new opportunity to compute can restore his spirit.
It must be emphasized that the portrait we have drawn is instantly
recogni zable at computing installations all over the world . It represents a far
less ambiguous psychopathology than , say , do the milder forms of schizo–
phrenia or paranoia. At the same time , it represents an extremely developed
form of a disorder that afflicts much of our society.
How are we
to
understand this compulsion? We must first recognize that
it is a compulsion . Normally , wishes for satisfaction lead
to
behaviors that
have a texture of discrimination and spontaneity . The fulfillment of such
wishes leads to pleasure . The compulsive programmer is driven ; there is little
spontaneity in how he behaves, and he finds no pleasure in the fulfillment of
his nominal wishes. He seeks reassurance from the computer, not pleasure .
The closest parallel we can find to this sort of psychopathology is in the
relentless , pleasureless drive for reassurance that characterizes the life of the
compulsive gambler.
The compulsive gambler is also
to
be sharply distinguished from the
professional gambler. The latter is , in an important sense , not a gambler at
all . We may leave aside the cheater and the professional confidence man , of
whom, certainly, neither are gamblers . The so-called professional gambler is
really an applied statistician, and perhaps an applied psychologist as well. His
income depends in almost no way on luck alone. He knows applied prob–
ability theory and uses it to calculate odds and then
to
play those odds in such
combinations and aggregates that his income over a period of, say , a year is
predictable by him to nearly a mathematical certainty. That is not gambling .
Then there are people who gamble but who are neither professional nor
compulsive gamblers . To the compulsive gambler, gambling, the game, is
everything. Even winning is less important than playing. He is, so
to
say,
happy only when he is at the gambling table.
Anyone who has ever worked in a computer center, or a gambling casino
that closes its doors at night , will recognize the scene described by Dostoevski,
himself a passionate gambler, in
The Gambler.
