In 1976, Joseph Weizenbaum published a book titled "Computer Power and Human Reason." In it, he described the "compulsive programmer," who exists in c...
In 1976, Joseph Weizenbaum published a book titled "Computer Power and Human Reason." In it, he described the "compulsive programmer," who exists in contrast to the professional programmer.
I took the time to make an abridgement of this section, reproduced below, because if you replaced all mentions of the computer, or even the programmer himself, with "AI agent," you'll notice that we're seeing the exact same phenomenon now that he saw then. In 50 years, the situation hasn't changed at all, just the tools we use and the speed at which code can be written.
In all this time, the description of the professional programmer has not changed and neither has that of the compulsive programmer, which has always described the majority of software developers.
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From Chapter 4 of "Computer Power and Human Reason" by Joseph Weizenbaum, titled "Science and the Compulsive Programmer":
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, whereas the compulsive programmer sees the problem mainly as an opportunity to interact with the computer. The ordinary computer programmer develops his program slowly and systematically. He regards programming as a means toward an end, not as an end in itself. His satisfaction comes from having solved a substantive problem, not from having bent a computer to his will.
The compulsive programmer is usually a superb technician. But because he can hardly be motivated to do anything but program, he will almost never document his programs once he stops working on them. His main interest is in very large, very ambitious systems of programs. These usually have very grandiose but extremely imprecisely stated goals. It is characteristic of many such projects that the programmer can long continue in the conviction that they demand knowledge about nothing but computers, programming, etc. Indeed, the point at which such work is often abandoned is precisely when it ceases to be purely incestuous.
Unlike the professional, the compulsive programmer cannot attend to other tasks during periods when he is not actually operating the computer. He can barely tolerate being away from the machine. While in the grip of his compulsion, he can talk of nothing but his program. But the only time he is, so to say, happy is when he is at the computer console.
"Working" is not the word the compulsive programmer uses; he calls what he does "hacking." The hacker is "without definite purpose": he cannot set before himself a clearly defined long-term goal and a plan for achieving it, for he has only technique, not knowledge. His skill is therefore aimless, even disembodied. His grandiose projects must therefore necessarily have the quality of illusions, indeed, of illusions of grandeur.
Programming systems can, of course, be built without plan and without knowledge, let alone understanding, of the deep structural issues involved. As a system so constructed begins to get large, however, it also becomes increasingly unstable. The hacker spends part of his time piling new subsystems and the rest of his time in attempts to account for the way in which substructures already in place misbehave.
His psychological situation is strongly determined by two apparently opposing facts: first, he knows that he can make the computer do anything he wants it to do; and second, the computer constantly displays undeniable evidence of his failures to him. It reproaches him. There is no escaping this bind. But the programmer moves in a world entirely of his own making. The computer challenges his power, not his knowledge.
Indeed, the compulsive programmer's excitement rises to its highest, most feverish pitch when he is on the trail of a most recalcitrant error. It is then that the system the programmer has himself created gives every evidence of having taken on a life of its own and, certainly, of having slipped from his control. His mood and his activity become frenzied when he believes he has finally discovered the source of the trouble. Under time pressure, he will take enormous risks with his program, making substantial changes, one after another, in minutes or even seconds without so much as recording what he is doing. He can, under such circumstances, rapidly and virtually irretrievably destroy weeks and weeks of his own work. Should he, however, find a deeply embedded error that accounts for much of the program's misbehavior, his joy is unbounded.
But the compulsive programmer's pride and elation are very brief. His success consists of his having shown the computer who its master is. And having demonstrated that he can make it do this much, he immediately sets out to make it do even more. Thus the entire cycle begins again. He begins to "improve" his system, say, by making it run faster, or by adding "new features" to it. The act of modifying the then-existing program invariably causes some of its substructures to collapse. His apparently devoted efforts to improve his own creation are really an assault on it. Should he be prevented from so sabotaging his own work, he will become visibly depressed. Only a new opportunity to compute can restore his spirit.
How are we to understand this compulsion? The compulsive programmer is driven, 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 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. 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.
Psychoanalysts saw megalomania and fantasies of omnipotence as principal ingredients in the psychic life of the compulsive gambler. Such a gambler has three principal convictions: first, he is subjectively certain that he will win; second, he has an unbounded faith in his own cleverness; third, he knows that life itself is nothing but a gamble.
