Weizenbaum, ELIZA and the end of human reason

Our societies are increasingly reliant on digital technologies of the form that incorporate computational and therefore calculative and computational ration- alities and which raise challenges for maintaining the sociological capacity for human reasoning. Our growing reliance on small software applications soon becomes problematic as they are automated, networked and interconnected into larger software platforms and services further complexifying their operation. To take an example, think of the increasing networked nature of the simple health, exercise or calorie-counting apps which is now reconciled across mul- tiple devices, time zones, people, projects and technologies and offer guid- ance, support and even discipline the user. Many of these systems were initially designed to support or aid the judgement of people in undertaking a number of activities, analyses and decisions, but have long since surpassed the under- standing of their users and become indispensable to them. In doing so, these devices transform the capacities for human reason by short-circuiting the con- volutions of cognitive processes that are manifested in human reason and by privileging certain instrumental relations manifested in logical processes.