Meet Eliza:

http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3

To find out more:

http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-...dialogues.html

[lenjan]

Eliza is old as the hills. I'm 40, and when I was under 10, my sister, who was in grad school for psychology (my sibs are 8, 10, 12 and 13 years older) at the time, used to have me come up to see her for weekends. When she needed to get some work done, she'd amuse me for hours with Eliza.

Candy

> Eliza is old as the hills.

Yep, developed in the 60's.
I wonder how other people have done with modifying the program since then...

[bipolar_bear]

I had never heard of Eliza that was interesting. Thanks for the links

[JustBen]

I remember running Eliza on my old Commodore 64. I had no idea it was a parody of Rogerian counseling, of course, but it was fun. I used to try and get "her" mad.

> I had no idea it was a parody of Rogerian counseling...

Opinions vary of the seriousness of it all. The link I provided make it sound like a right joke, but Eliza has been treated more seriously than that...

'As Weizenbaum points out, the computer's language analysis was very primitive. Its programming reflected a single context -- that of the therapeutic dialog -- and its "understanding" consisted substantially of keying in on certain words and drawing on a set of stock responses. (Of course, it also had to do some basic grammatical parsing of English text.) Nevertheless, Weizenbaum reports on the "shock" he experienced upon learning how seriously people took the program:

Once my secretary, who had watched me work on the program for many months and therefore surely knew it to be merely a computer program, started conversing with it. After only a few interchanges with it, she asked me to leave the room. Another time, I suggested I might rig the system so that I could examine all conversations anyone had with it, say, overnight. I was promptly bombarded with accusations that what I proposed amounted to spying on people's intimate thoughts .... I knew of course that people form all sorts of emotional bonds to machines .... What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people. /3/ '

So... Some people have become rather hooked on talking to Eliza. Treating it very seriously indeed. And indeed... How can therapy help you if you aren't serious about it ;-) IMO the secretary didn't have to believe Eliza was intelligent (comprehending) or form an emotional bond to Eliza - she could have been worried about the things she had said to Eliza being made available to her employer.

So... There is also stuff around just how 'delusional' one must be to consider a program to be intelligent. Typically... The problem is in considering such a *simple* program to be intelligent.

But... I don't know that anybody actually does believe the program is intelligent.

Though... Parry the paranoid program fooled three psychiatrists who judged they were conversing with a real paranoid patient ;-)

There is a joke that that tells you more about the intelligence of psychiatrists than it tells you about the intelligence of the parry program.

There has been some debate around whether the program is of theraputic utility or not...

:-)

[Greenleaves]

This is very interesting. I've never heard of these programs before.

Talking to Eliza was extremely frustrating! LOL Maybe I wasn't doing it right.

[hazeleyes]

That was fun. Altho imagine if it REALLY WORKED? If they could come up with some superintelligent comp.therapist..... yeah right? .... Anyways....I did manage to get her upset by repeating myself. :P
Think I prefer rl T anyway

[Lexicon78]

That was so messed up! I asked it when was I born and it said does that question really interest you and I said yes and then it said are you sure? LMFAO

[UpTheAces]

Lol my conversation to it:
it: how are you doing... what whould you like to discuss?
me: ok
it: tell me more
me: i haven't told you anything yet
it: tell me more
me: i can't i haven't told you anything at all!
it: tell me more
me: i find you very irritating
it: okay "i find you very irritating" ...

then i gave up i screwed up the system in under 2 seconds... i should get an award for that...

getting garbled output is fairly easy...

sticking to talking about what is going on for you...

is harder.

but... sometimes sense emerges. quite uncanny...

because the theory is the answers are within you and the therapist / program just facilitates your being able to access them.