Purpose:
To converse with automated characters and observe what
makes for a coherent conversation.
Read :
Hamlet on the Holodeck, chapter
8
Supplementary and Graduate Reading:
Weizenbaum, "ELIZA" (handout)
Foner, "Entertaining
Agents"
Margaret Boden Artificial Intelligence and Natural
Man, pp. 21-111 (on reserve) (on Colby's work).
On-Line Conversations
Choose one or more of the following automated
characters, and bring a printout or electronic file of the resulting conversations
to class, marking the longest consecutive string of coherent exchanges
between you and the character. What increased the sense of verisimilitude?
Which characters did you find it easiest to converse with?
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
and print out your best conversation. (Control-X Control-S to save; Control-X
Control-C to quit emacs)
Or use this site for Eliza
via telnet.
Optional Supplement or alternative to ELIZA conversation:
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 and save
the results. Print it out and on the printout mark the successful interchanges
-- the ones that were believable or amusing, that made it seem as if there
was conprehension between the two characters. Write a short note indicating
what made them work and be ready to talk about it in class.
Exercise 3: Julia
Talk to Michael Mauldin's Julia
(use "Julia" as password) and visit her homepage.
Optional: read Lenny Foner's "Entertaining
Agents"
Exercise 4: Other 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.
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