Project 3

Turing studied artificial intelligence in the 1950s. Through his essay, he explores the notion of machines thinking. He doesn't necessarily argue that machines have the capacity to think in a nonphysical sense, but he raises the question of whether machines can do what humans do--which could mean thinking. From his studies, the Turing Test was created. For a machine to pass this test, a human administrator must mistake the machine as human. Lacan creates the idea of the "mirror stage," where a person continues to form their sense of their physical self through the portrayal of themselves in interactions. Through these two studies along with other readings and discussions from our course, I can see the way identity is portrayed through chats. I chose to interact with strictly bots. I was interested in seeing the different responses each bot had and how human-like they came across as.
My first chat was with a program called Jabberwacky Chat.
I was unsure of the exact nature and intent of Jabberwacky. I had never heard of it, so wasn't sure what to expect. The website, jabberwacky.com, explained that this "chatterbot" is meant to provide conversation that simulates human interaction. The bot aims to be "entertaining, humorours, and interesting." This bot has the ability to learn, which I feel is important when attempting to pass the Turing Test. The bot takes what its chatters say and stores it to reuse them later. The stored information is used through a "contextual pattern matching techniques." To become more human and "think" like Turing asserts, I feel this is a necessary thing for a bot to do. I, personally, didn't think the bot felt very human. While it did have a sense of character, he (which I'm not sure why I say he...the bot even told me it was a woman) seemed to know very random facts and change the subject frequently. However, this does remind me of Lacan. The bot learns from what the other person says. This, then, reflects my own personality and identity back to myself. Since the bot attempts to be like its user, the user is able to get a sense of one's self.
The next chat I used was Eliza.
It appears the purpose of Eliza is to offer a "pyschiatrist-like" feel. It works like a parody of the traditional therapist session. Whatever one asks Eliza, she repeats back with a question. I definitely do not feel this bot would pass the Turing Test. She seems to be completely unable of doing what it is that humans do, like Turing suggested. Her repetiore of information is completely canned and has no oringiality. When I converesed with Jabberwacky, she was able to give me information about herself, which seemed entirely human. I asked Eliza questions, and she did not understand them at all.
Finally, I talked to Smarterchild on AIM.
I had always used Smarterchild when I was in middle school. I thought it was funny to get a rise out of or annoy a computer. I watned to look more into the Smarterchild phenomenon, so I, of course, checked out Wikipedia. I found that Smarterchild is more than I thought. Oringinally, it had been created to offer advertisements while conversing with users. Smarterchild would have access to the person's previous converstaions to find triggers of what products the user would be interested in. I think this is so much like Lacan, by understanding your persona through your appearance online. I feel that by offering a product to someone reveals to them their personality. Now that Smarterchild isn't strictly for selling and advertising products, it still attempts to find information about the users. During the beginning of my converstaion, Smarterchild asked me a few personal questions. I feel that this is to later keep up a friendship persona. I think this is definitely creating a more human bot. By recalling the things I had previously said, Smarterchild becomes very much like a human. I definitely think Smarterchild has the ability to pass the Turing Test. Their conversation flows very nicely and doesn't seem robotic or out of place. The answers to my questions actually made sense or he admitted he couldn't answer them.
This project definitely showed how human idenitity and the way we think is portrayed through robots. Through these three different "chatterbots," I realized that coversing with a robot can, at times, be very much like speaking with a human.