On After Eight today, we're going to speak of the computer.
Is it possible it might be harming
the minds of our children?
There's almost as much concern about computer literacy today
as there is about reading, writing, and arithmetic.
You can buy computer programs to teach your children everything
from French to algebra.
More and more schools are using the computers in the classroom.
But could the computer possibly be a dangerous toy?
This man says yes.
He is Professor Joseph Weizenbaum, a computer pioneer.
Also with me today is Professor Michael Dertouzos.
Both men are from MIT.
Both have different points of view.
Gentlemen, welcome.
Morning.
Professor Weizenbaum, let me start with you.
You have said that the computer encourages
what you say are limiting the thought process
that the computer encourages.
Like what?
Well, I think that what one does with computers generally
is to build models of things.
And a model of the thing has necessarily
to be a picture of that thing in a very limited context.
There are things about--
there are things in real life which
don't fit into a framework of logic and computation
and so on.
And I think that it's possible and happens that when
people deal with computer models that it's rather like looking
through a pair of binoculars.
It may be that you see some things enlarged
and in more detail than otherwise.
But you cut out a lot too.
But you don't see the grand picture.
Exactly.
Not really a dangerous toy in the sense
that it's dangerous to anybody, but just kind of a limiting.
That's right.
And I think that if it's overdone, then it could--
I suppose one could use the word dangerous.
Professor Dertouzos, nonetheless, you
see the classroom computer as a useful classroom tool.
How come?
Well, I think we are all very privileged
to be in this great information revolution in which
the computer is going to affect us very profoundly,
probably more so than the Industrial Revolution.
That's my belief.
And I think in the schools, we ought
to learn about the computer, what makes it tick.
And we ought to explore it.
It's a little bit like the old Wild West.
The computer opens up horizons, which are full of many flowers,
and possibly very great things in the future,
but also some pitfalls.
And I think we've got to experiment in education.
There are a lot of ways we can use a computer in the school.
What of your cohort's view here that it basically
limits your view of everything?
I don't think it does.
I think it expands your view.
Let's take, for example, the kind of uses
you could have with a computer.
First and foremost is motivation.
Just go to any school today and look
at the kids, how excited they are about the computer.
They're excited because it's different.
That's right, but motivation is the number one pushing force
for learning.
If you don't have motivation, in my opinion,
learning is not very worthwhile.
Now, how can you use it once you're motivated?
You could run little experiments, models,
as Joe says.
For example, you could be trying how
it feels to throw a stone in a different world, in the moon,
or in the planet where the gravity is maybe 10 times
the gravity of the Earth.
Or if you want to be a little funny,
you could try throwing it in a planet where the atmosphere is
heavier, thicker like yogurt.
Now all this could teach a child the various ways
in which a projectile moves.
You're talking about an idyllic situation.
We're basically disagreeing about human nature
here and what it's going to do with this toy.
I don't think so.
I think we're getting close to what
we ought to be talking about.
Mike is talking about motivation in school.
And it's certainly true today that motivation is
an enormous problem in school.
There's lack of motivation on the part of children.
In New York City, for example, the daily absentee rate
is 33% and so on.
So it is necessary to motivate kids in school.
But the computer has often played
the role of essentially a solution looking for a problem.
The problem, one problem of many problems, in the schools
today is motivation.
What one ought to do is one should look at that problem
and say, what could possibly be the cause of it?
Instead, what happens is that the computer is brought along.
And because it motivates to some extent it,
it's seen as the solution to the educational problem,
and it isn't.
There are lots and other things wrong.
The computer then covers up in effect,
or it makes it difficult or even impossible to look
at the real problem.
Home computer sales, classroom computer sales
seems to seem to have peaked.
And now they're hit a flat period and some
say they're going--
I don't think so.
Oh yes.
They've hit a flat period.
What should that tell us?
I really don't believe that they've hit a flat period.
The computer market has been and is rising at about 30%
per year.
And nowhere has there been a flat period.
It is not rising at nearly the rate it was going.
Yes it is.
We disagree.
We're looking at two--
we're looking at two different sets of numbers.
My question to you is, is the home computer
destined to become the CB of the '80s?
The hula hoop of the '80s?
I'm glad you brought this analogy, because like a CB,
it won't be very useful in its present form, which is just
talking to yourself into your computer.
But like a CB, when it starts talking to other computers
throughout the whole country, when
we have several million machines interconnected and people can
talk to each other, and can exchange views,
and can transact, can buy and sell information,
can buy and sell information of services, labor,
I think it's going to be a very interesting period where
we'll have an information marketplace, a new way of life.
I quite disagree.
I want to get him anyway.
I think that won't work.
I think that the home computer is
going to suffer the same fate, by and large,
as the home movie camera.
People had the idea, and still have
the idea, that if they have a very expensive,
a very good home movie camera, then
they can make very good movies.
You still got to be a good movie maker first.
That's right.
The trouble is you have to have an idea.
OK.
And people forget that.
Similarly, to write good and interesting programs
on a computer one has to have an idea.
Ideas are hard to come by.
Professor Weizenbaum, Professor Dertouzos,
thank you both, gentlemen.
We're moving up on 8:22.
We'll come back in a moment, but first this is Today on NBC.