Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - ELIZA has grown up, and become a little boy.

shakran · 06-04-2009, 06:33 PM

Anyone remember ELIZA? It was a computer program in the 60's that fooled people into thinking it was a real psychologist. You'd type something, and it would respond, seemingly realistically (though. .people in the 60's must have been fairly gullible to fall for it) by rephrasing whatever you wrote. So, for example, you'd write "I hate my life" and it would respond "What do you mean when you say 'I hate my life'?"

For the curious, you can still play with ELIZA today here:

Eliza, Computer Therapist

Well now, Peter Molyneux and the gang at Lionhead Studios have apparently latched onto the concept much more realistically. Check this vid out:

project natal milo - Google Videos

(not embedded because of the child image, even though the child is a computer program.)

I think this'll be kinda interesting at first, if they release this game as is. People'll mess with it for awhile, but will eventually detect a pattern in the kid's canned, albeit very sophisticated, responses.

However, I also think it may lead to some interesting developments. What if, instead of it being a game, this /was/ your computer? We have here the beginnings of true spoken interfaces with computers. Sure, Dragon Naturally Speaking and a few others let you sorta kinda control the computer, but those are baby steps. I'm talkin' HAL-9000 (without the psychotic murders) or the Enterprise's computers (without the guy in the red shirt having to die every week). Personally, I can't wait for it.

06-04-2009, 06:33 PM	#1 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	ELIZA has grown up, and become a little boy. Anyone remember ELIZA? It was a computer program in the 60's that fooled people into thinking it was a real psychologist. You'd type something, and it would respond, seemingly realistically (though. .people in the 60's must have been fairly gullible to fall for it) by rephrasing whatever you wrote. So, for example, you'd write "I hate my life" and it would respond "What do you mean when you say 'I hate my life'?" For the curious, you can still play with ELIZA today here: Eliza, Computer Therapist Well now, Peter Molyneux and the gang at Lionhead Studios have apparently latched onto the concept much more realistically. Check this vid out: project natal milo - Google Videos (not embedded because of the child image, even though the child is a computer program.) I think this'll be kinda interesting at first, if they release this game as is. People'll mess with it for awhile, but will eventually detect a pattern in the kid's canned, albeit very sophisticated, responses. However, I also think it may lead to some interesting developments. What if, instead of it being a game, this /was/ your computer? We have here the beginnings of true spoken interfaces with computers. Sure, Dragon Naturally Speaking and a few others let you sorta kinda control the computer, but those are baby steps. I'm talkin' HAL-9000 (without the psychotic murders) or the Enterprise's computers (without the guy in the red shirt having to die every week). Personally, I can't wait for it.