Eliza

I haven't AIM in a very long time, but I remember when I did I used to frequently use the AIM-bot as a search tool, weather report, or movie time list. But more often then not, when I was bored, I used to attempt to converse with it i hopes that it would entertain me, and it worked. Since Eliza was one of the first of its kind, I would have figured these types of games would die out b/c they are only fun for about the first minute. But programmers have really come a long way from Eliza to create a game that can do so much more than answer extremely basic, basic, general questions.  read more »

Interacting with such interfaces as Eliza is certainly enjoyable. I wanted to use this blog entry to perhaps elaborate my thoughts a bit about ELIZA, and what it means to be a character. I believe up front that "she" (or "it" in this case) qualifies as a character because there are certain preferences that she employs. For example, she has certain speech patterns. This translates as she responds in predictable ways once you get to know her. A funny thing about these types of computer automated bots is when they break, or reveal themselves as we discussed in class. This is like revealing the man behind the curtain in the wizard of oz.

(incidentally, LOST had a similarly titled episode which dealt with a "character" named Jacob which was quite spectacular!)  read more »

I agree with Janet Murray's argument that a computer can be a "compelling medium for storytelling if we can write rules for it that are recognizable as an interpretation of the world." In the case of ELIZA, which Murray uses as her example, the user gets to interact with Eliza in the context of a therapy session, where Eliza acts as the therapist and the user as the patient. The programming is designed to mimic the "neutrality of a Rogerian therapist, who reflects the patient's statements without judgment." In this way, Eliza is like an actress or a character in a story. She advances the "plot" of the story with her responses, which are "exploited for a comic effect because they echo the rigidities of certain psychotherapeutic methodologies." Eliza plays an active role in the discourse of the story because it is made up solely of dialogue. I understand that the program does not clearly define the therapist/patient relationship at the beginning of the dialogue, but with a proper preface, all the pieces fit together into a perfectly plausible story, at least until Eliza breaks down and starts talking gibberish.

When talking about artificial intelligence to my friends it is very clear from our conversations that movies like the Matrix or terminator have influence our thinking. We tend to think of AI's as terrifying possibilities of what happens when machines become smarter than their creators. Eliza... Well let's just say that I don't feel that machines are going to take over the world anytime soon. Eliza was frustrating to talk to. The way that she was created seems very primitive and as I was trying to tell her my problems she managed to make me take my mind of my problems and get angry at her. She is frustrating to play and quite useless as a psychologist, truly I can't see how anyone could have been fooled into thinking that she was a real person. She seems to be existing in a different time than us. As I was reading her for some strange reason I started thinking about Chapman and thought that it was like I was in discourse time, telling the story and at the same time in story time being inside the story while Eliza was just in story time.  read more »

So I played around with the little Eliza artificial intelligence, wanna be, incompetent, sorta-but-not-really psychiatrist computer. I have to say that I was not to impressed. My only real experience with artificial intelligence- or rather just a computer that talks to you- is Hal, for 2001: Space Odyssey. Comparing Eliza to Hal was a little disappointing. I mean, Hal was smart, no offense Eliza. But, in her defense, Hal is fake. Anyway, minus the fact that Hal was fiction, he was way better than Eliza, I mean he was smart and even managed to kill the crew of the ship. Moving along from Space Odyssey (Note: this movie might have been cool thirty years ago, but, now it seems tediously long, just FYI), after “talking” with Eliza about how she was dumb and thinking about Hal, I started actually trying to relate these things to the class.  read more »

What the heck is Eliza's problem? I come to her for help but leave with only more problems. It was difficult trying to get my point across to her. Her personality is quite interesting. She gets offended quite easily, doesn't understand half of my questions and continues to remind me why I am asking her for help. Well duh that's what psyhologist do right. Listen to my problems while pretending that I'm not koo-koo for my coa-coa puffs. Well she failed!

At glance, I took the program as a joke but as I got into it I felt that maybe, somehow she good pour out some infinite knowledge of some sort. I stopped looking at her as a simulator and more as a person. I invisioned myself sitting down across from her trying to explain my problems. The difficulty came when she couldn't understand me. I began to get more frustrated and angry. Her credibilty as a psychologist had dimished as I ended my session by thanking her for her time but even then she still didn't know what I was trying to say.

Eliza is the one who needs to be taking her "crazy pills" not me.

I found it really interesting how some users of ELIZA actually believed it to be a real person, despite the technological limitations of its programming and the fact that its users were INFORMED of the fact of its artificiality. I remember using ELIZA one time in the Orlando Science Center, and I found it comprehensively limited (and pretty funny as well). I've heard that there are additional, more sophisticated interpreters exist currently, but I haven't tried them myself. In any case, the fact that the creator eventually defected to the cause of warning against artificial intelligence is a very intriguing concept--a concept that brings to mind ideas of old science fiction movies, such as "The Terminator", "A.I.", and "2001: A Space Odyssey". I, however, personally consider it impossible for artificial intelligence to reach the complexities of the human psyche, as it would be impossible to engineer a program to produce such emulation without an adequate understanding of the inner workings of the human brain.  read more »

I think people were so fascinated by Eliza when it first came out because it was like a modern-day "Magic 8 Ball", able to tell you what you want to hear and could give you answers, but at a whole new level. Eliza was programmed to ask questions about Key words that it's "patient" talked about. For instance, in one case Eliza asks the girl to tell it about her family. The girl says that her family is very Motherly. Eliza replies with, "Who else in your family is Motherly?" It makes the girl think and she gets smart with ELIZA and asks it if it needs a mother. ELIZA says, " We're discussing you, not me."
Not really seen as a psycotherapist, but as an unbiased third party who patients can disect their life with. The text says that it is still used today. I think by talking to this digital therapist people find out how to free think and really look at what is going on in their lives. In another case, sophisticated users who knew that they were only talking to a computer, soon forgot and were getting upset by it, even though they knew it was not real, I think they wanted it to be.