Interactive Narrative: Theory and Practice | Syllabus | Readings | Project Assignments | 21w765j / 21L489 (U); 21L989 (G) Dr. Janet H. Murray jhmurray@mit.edu

Chatterbot In-Class Assignment March 30, 1999

Purpose: To converse with automated characters and observe what makes for a coherent conversation. Exercise 1: ELIZA On Athena, bring up the emacs word processor by typing emacs Within emacs do: escape-x doctor This will bring up a version of Eliza. Talk to her. Save your best conversation. (Control-X Control-S to save; Control-X Control-C to quit emacs) Alternate: Eliza via telnet. Optional: Also in emacs type escape--x yow Observe and save the results. Now do this escape-x psychoanalyze-pinhead Control-g. will end this routine. Again, observe the successful interchanges -- the ones that were believable or amusing, that made it seem as if there was conprehension between the two characters.   Exercise 2: Chatterbots Play with the Alice, Maur, or the other chatterbots on this website of the Communication Research Centre's CHAT project. Note that these characters are based on a hypertext model of conversation. Cut and paste your conversation as you go to save it to file.