Artificial Intelligence - What Is The ELIZA Software?

 

ELIZA is a conversational computer software created by German-American computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum at Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 1964 and 1966.

Weizenbaum worked on ELIZA as part of a groundbreaking artificial intelligence research team on the DARPA-funded Project MAC, which was directed by Marvin Minsky (Mathematics and Computation).

Weizenbaum called ELIZA after Eliza Doolittle, a fictitious character in the play Pygmalion who learns correct English; that play had recently been made into the successful film My Fair Lady in 1964.

ELIZA was created with the goal of allowing a person to communicate with a computer system in plain English.

Weizenbaum became an AI skeptic as a result of ELIZA's popularity among users.

When communicating with ELIZA, users may input any statement into the system's open-ended interface.

ELIZA will often answer by asking a question, much like a Rogerian psychologist attempting to delve deeper into the patient's core ideas.

The application recycles portions of the user's comments while the user continues their chat with ELIZA, providing the impression that ELIZA is genuinely listening.

Weizenbaum had really developed ELIZA to have a tree-like decision structure.

The user's statements are first filtered for important terms.

The terms are ordered in order of significance if more than one keyword is discovered.

For example, if a user writes in "I suppose everyone laughs at me," the term "everybody," not "I," is the most crucial for ELIZA to reply to.

In order to generate a response, the computer uses a collection of algorithms to create a suitable sentence structure around those key phrases.

Alternatively, if the user's input phrase does not include any words found in ELIZA's database, the software finds a content-free comment or repeats a previous answer.

ELIZA was created by Weizenbaum to investigate the meaning of machine intelligence.

Weizenbaum derived his inspiration from a comment made by MIT cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky, according to a 1962 article in Datamation.

"Intelligence was just a characteristic human observers were willing to assign to processes they didn't comprehend, and only for as long as they didn't understand them," Minsky had claimed (Weizenbaum 1962).

If such was the case, Weizenbaum concluded, artificial intelligence's main goal was to "fool certain onlookers for a while" (Weizenbaum 1962).

ELIZA was created to accomplish precisely that by giving users reasonable answers while concealing how little the software genuinely understands in order to keep the user's faith in its intelligence alive for a bit longer.

Weizenbaum was taken aback by how successful ELIZA became.

ELIZA's Rogerian script became popular as a program renamed DOCTOR at MIT and distributed to other university campuses by the late 1960s—where the program was constructed from Weizenbaum's 1965 description published in the journal Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery.

The application deceived (too) many users, even those who were well-versed in its methods.

Most notably, some users grew so engrossed with ELIZA that they demanded that others leave the room so they could have a private session with "the" DOCTOR.

But it was the psychiatric community's reaction that made Weizenbaum very dubious of current artificial intelligence ambitions in general, and promises of computer comprehension of natural language in particular.

Kenneth Colby, a Stanford University psychiatrist with whom Weizenbaum had previously cooperated, created PARRY about the same time that Weizenbaum released ELIZA.

Colby, unlike Weizenbaum, thought that programs like PARRY and ELIZA were beneficial to psychology and public health.

They aided the development of diagnostic tools, enabling one psychiatric computer to treat hundreds of patients, according to him.

Weizenbaum's worries and emotional plea to the community of computer scientists were eventually conveyed in his book Computer Power and Human Reason (1976).

Weizenbaum railed against individuals who neglected the presence of basic distinctions between man and machine in this — at the time — hotly discussed book, arguing that "there are some things that computers ought not to execute, regardless of whether computers can be persuaded to do them" (Weizenbaum 1976, x).

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

See also: 

Chatbots and Loebner Prize; Expert Systems; Minsky, Marvin; Natural Lan￾guage Processing and Speech Understanding; PARRY; Turing Test

Further Reading:

McCorduck, Pamela. 1979. Machines Who Think: A Personal Inquiry into the History and Prospects of Artificial Intelligence, 251–56, 308–28. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman and Company.

Weizenbaum, Joseph. 1962. “How to Make a Computer Appear Intelligent: Five in a Row Offers No Guarantees.” Datamation 8 (February): 24–26.

Weizenbaum, Joseph. 1966. “ELIZA: A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication between Man and Machine.” Communications of the ACM 1 (January): 36–45.

Weizenbaum, Joseph. 1976. Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company

Artificial Intelligence - How Is AI Represented In The Film 'Ex Machina'?

 

Ex Machina is a 2014 film that reimagines themes from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein in light of recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence.

The film, like Shelley's book, portrays the narrative of a creator who is blinded by his own arrogance and the created who rebels against him.

Alex Garland wrote and directed the film, which tells the narrative of Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a software firm employee who is invited to the lavish and secluded house of the business's CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), under the guise of having won a contest.

Bateman's true goal is for Smith to conduct a Turing Test to Ava, a humanoid robot (played by Alicia Vikander).

Ava has a robotic torso but a human face and hands in terms of look.

Despite the fact that Ava has previously passed a preliminary Turing Test, Bateman has something more complicated in mind to put her talents to the test.

He lets Smith engage with Ava in order to see whether Smith can connect to her despite the fact that she is manufactured.

Ava is confined to an apartment on Bateman's property that she is unable to leave, and she is continuously watched.

She tells Smith that she can cause power shortages, allowing them to communicate quietly without Bateman's interference.

Smith is increasingly drawn to Ava, and she tells him that she feels the same way, and that she wants to experience the world outside the complex.

Smith discovers Bateman's plan to "upgrade" Ava, causing her to lose her memories and personality.

Smith grows more worried about Bateman's actions at this period.

Bateman is inebriated to the point of passing out, and he is violent to Ava and his servant, Kyoko.

When Bateman is drunk enough to pass out one night, Smith steals his access card and hacks into past surveillance video, revealing evidence of Bateman abusing and disturbing prior AIs.

He also learns that Kyoko is an artificial intelligence.

Suspecting that he, too, is an AI, he slices into his arm to hunt for robotic components, but there are none.

When Smith runs into Ava again, he tells her what he's witnessed.

She begs for his assistance in escaping.

They design a scheme in which Smith would get Bateman intoxicated to the point of passing out, reprogram the property's security, and then he and Ava will flee the compound together.

Bateman informs Smith that he surreptitiously recorded the previous chat between Smith and Ava on a battery-powered camera, and that the actual test was to see whether Ava could dupe Smith into falling for her and tricking him into assisting her in her escape.

According to Bateman, this was Ava's genuine IQ test.

When Bateman notices Ava has disconnected the power and is about to go, he knocks Smith unconscious and rushes over to stop her.

Kyoko assists Ava in injuring Bateman with a grievous stab wound, but Kyoko and Ava are injured in the process.

Ava is repaired using Bateman's earlier AI models, and she assumes the appearance of a human lady.

She abandons Smith in the complex and flees on the chopper that was intended for him.

The last shot depicts her vanishing into the throngs of a large metropolis.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

See also: 

Eliezer Yudkowsky.

Further Reading:

Dupzyk, Kevin. 2019. “How Ex Machina Foresaw the Weaponization of Data.” Popular Mechanics, January 16, 2019. https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/movies/a25749315/ex-machina-double-take-data-harvesting/.

Saito, Stephen. 2015. “Intelligent Artifice: Alex Garland’s Smart, Stylish Ex Machina.” MovieMaker Magazine, April 9, 2015. https://www.moviemaker.com/intelligent-artifice-alex-garlands-smart-stylish-ex-machina/.

Thorogood, Sam. 2017. “Ex Machina, Frankenstein, and Modern Deities.” The Artifice, June 12, 2017. https://the-artifice.com/ex-machina-frankenstein-modern-deities/.

Artificial Intelligence - How Has The Blade Runner (1982) Film Envisioned AI Androids?

 

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip Dick was first published in 1968 and is set in post-industrial San Francisco in the year 2020.

In 1982, the book was renamed Blade Runner for a cinematic adaption set in Los Angeles in the year 2019.

While the texts vary significantly, both recount the narrative of bounty hunter Rick Deckard, who is entrusted with locating (and executing) escaping replicants/androids (six in the novel, four in the film).

The setting for both novels is a future in which cities have grown overcrowded and polluted.

Natural nonhuman life has virtually vanished (due to radiation sickness) and been replaced by synthetic and artificial life.

Natural life has become a valued commodity in the future.

Replicants are meant to perform a variety of industrial functions in this environment, most notably as labor for off-world colonies.

The replicants are an exploited race that was created to serve human masters.

When they are no longer useful, they are discarded, and when they struggle against their circumstances, they are retired.

Blade runners are specialist law enforcement operatives tasked with apprehending and killing renegade replicants.

Rick Deckard, a former Blade Runner, returns from retirement to track down the sophisticated Nexus-6 replicant models.

These replicants have escaped to Earth after rebelling against the slave-like conditions on Mars.

In both texts, the treatment of artificial intelligence serves as an implicit critique of capitalism.

The Rosen Association in the book and the Tyrell Corporation in the film develop replicants to create a more docile labor, implying that capitalism converts people into robots.

Eldon Rosen (who is called Tyrell in the film) emphasizes these obnoxious commercial imperatives: "We provided what the colonists wanted...." Every commercial venture is founded on a time-honored principle.

Other corporations would have developed these progressive more human kinds if our company hadn't." 

There are two types of replicants in the movie: those who are designed to be unaware that they are androids and are filled with implanted memories (like Rachael Tyrell), and those who are aware that they are androids and live by that knowledge (the Nexus-6 fugitives).

Rachael in the film is a new Nexus-7 model that has been implanted with the memories of Eldon Tyrell's niece, Lilith. Deckard is sent to murder her, but instead falls in love with her. The two depart the city together at the conclusion of the film.

Rachael's character is handled differently in the book.

Deckard makes an effort to recruit Rachael's assistance in locating the runaway androids. Rachael agrees to meet Deckard in a hotel room in the hopes of persuading him to drop the case.

Rachael explains during their encounter that one of the runaway androids (Pris Stratton) is a carbon copy of her (making Rachael a Nexus-6 model in the novel).

Deckard and Rachael actually have sex and profess their love for each other.

Rachael, on the other hand, is discovered to have slept with other blade runners.

She is designed to do just that in order to keep them from fulfilling their tasks.

Deckard threatens to murder Rachael but decides to leave the hotel rather than carry out his threat.

The replicants are undetectable in both the literature and the movies.

Even under a microscope, they seem to be totally human.

The Voigt-Kampff test, which separates humans from androids based on emotional reactions to a variety of questions, is the sole method to identify them.

The exam is conducted with the use of a machine that monitors blush reaction, heart rate, and eye movement in response to empathy-related questions.

Deckard's identity as a human or a replicant is unknown at this time.

Rachael even inquires as to whether he has completed the Voigt-Kampff exam.

In the movie, Deckard's position is unclear.

Despite the fact that the audience is free to make their own choice, filmmaker Ridley Scott has hinted that Deckard is a replicant.

Deckard takes and passes the exam at the conclusion of the book, although he starts to doubt the effectiveness of blade running.

More than the movie, the book explores what it means to be human in the face of technological advancements.

The book depicts the fragility of the human experience and how it can be easily harmed by the technology that is supposed to help it.

Individuals with Penfield mood organs, for example, can use them to control their emotions.

All that is required is for a person to look up an emotion in a manual, dial the appropriate number, and then experience whatever emotion they desire.

The device's usage and the generation of artificial sensations implies that people may become robotic, as Deckard's wife Iran points out: My first response was to express gratitude for the fact that we could afford a Penfield mood organ.

But then I understood how harmful it was to sense the lack of vitality everywhere, not only in this building - do you know what I mean? I'm assuming you don't.

That, however, was formerly thought to be an indication of mental disease, referred to as "lack of proper emotion." The argument made by Dick is that the mood organ inhibits humans from feeling the right emotional elements of life, which is precisely what the Voigt-Kampff test reveals replicants are incapable of.

Philip Dick was known for his hazy and maybe gloomy vision of artificial intelligence.

His androids and robots are distinctly ambiguous.

They desire to be like humans, yet they lack empathy and emotions.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is heavily influenced by this uncertainty, which also appears onscreen in Blade Runner.

~ Jai Krishna Ponnappan

You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.

See also: 

Nonhuman Rights and Personhood; Pathetic Fallacy; Turing Test.

Further Reading

Brammer, Rebekah. 2018. “Welcome to the Machine: Artificial Intelligence on Screen.” Screen Education 90 (September): 38–45.

Fitting, Peter. 1987. “Futurecop: The Neutralization of Revolt in Blade Runner.” Science Fiction Studies 14, no. 3: 340–54.

Sammon, Paul S. 2017. Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner. New York: Dey Street Books.

Wheale, Nigel. 1991. “Recognising a ‘Human-Thing’: Cyborgs, Robots, and Replicants in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.” Critical Survey 3, no. 3: 297–304.