Sorry for the cut and paste - was sent to me by email.


IT pioneer Joseph Weizenbaum dies


Christoph Hammerschmidt
EE Times Europe
(03/07/2008 4:35 AM EST)


MUNICH, Germany × Computer pioneer and philosopher Joseph Weizenbaum (85) has died in Berlin. The scientist and MIT professor emeritus was known for his critical position towards the impact of information technology to society.

Born in Berlin to Jewish parents, Weizenbaum had emigrated in 1936 to the United States. After having contributed to the development of the first analog computers and participating in the design of the first digital computers for banking applications, Weizenbaum in 1963 took a position at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT); from 1970 he was professor for computer science. Among his major achievements were studies
over the SLIP programming language and research on basic software technologies which today are in widespread use such as garbage collection algorithms.

One of his most influential works was the development of the natural language processor ELIZA which is said to be one of the early breakthroughs for Artificial Intelligence. In this context, he developed a program simulating a conversation between a physician and a patient.

Shocked over the fact that many test series participants were unable to determine they in fact were communicating with a computer and openly divulged most intimate details of their life, Weizenbaum developed a more critical and reserved posture towards information technologies and turned into an inconvenient admonisher. He co-founded the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility group. Until his death, he also was Chairman of the Scientific Institute of Electronic Business in Berlin.

In 1996, Weizenbaum moved to Berlin. On March 5, he died in consequence of apoplexy.

A very thoughtful chap, and one of the pioneers of IT.

Even today, people in the field often state that the modern 'Chatbots' haven't improved much from ELIZA.

Eliza was crap though, I think you'd have to be a low-watt bulb to think it was anything other than canned responses.

Eliza was crap though, I think you'd have to be a low-watt bulb to think it was anything other than canned responses.

Absolutely - what's really scarey is that people were convinced and that there has been so little improvement.

Where the Eliza technology did work well was in simulating paranoids.... :) There was a version called PARRY based on the persona of a paranoid schizophrenic who was convinced that the mob were after him.

Eliza was crap though, I think you'd have to be a low-watt bulb to think it was anything other than canned responses.

Some (most?/all???) of the adult premium rate SMS text services use an eliza type bot. The bot intercepts almost every SMS received and sends back an open reply encouraging a response. It works almost like a filter and it catches almost everything (even seemingly incomprehensible "txt spk"). The bot even inserts a random pause before replying (so the person who receives the reply doesn't get suspicious by the instant communication).

Natachata was a commercial chat bot for this exact purpose (google it) although some are rudimentary hacked eliza/alice scripts.

People are often strung along for months (with 100s of SMSs each costing over £1). Of course, you may argue that you'd have to be a "low-watt light bulb" to use premium rate sms services in the first place, but still... there you go :)

Some (most?/all???) of the adult premium rate SMS text services use an eliza type bot. The bot intercepts almost every SMS received and sends back an open reply encouraging a response. It works almost like a filter and it catches almost everything (even seemingly incomprehensible "txt spk"). The bot even inserts a random pause before replying (so the person who receives the reply doesn't get suspicious by the instant communication).

Natachata was a commercial chat bot for this exact purpose (google it) although some are rudimentary hacked eliza/alice scripts.

People are often strung along for months (with 100s of SMSs each costing over £1). Of course, you may argue that you'd have to be a "low-watt light bulb" to use premium rate sms services in the first place, but still... there you go :)

There is a lot of work being done with AIML / ALICE based bots - I've got an interest in them myself, though not for pervy purposes. :)

Some years ago I saw a web site promoting a film which was populated by characters based on AIML, and within the lmited context they were pretty good.

'Feelthy Chatbots' are pretty straight froward to code for - they have a limited context to work in and there is a willingness to go along with the illusion from the punters. I believe that some variants have succesfully 'socially engineered' credit card numbers out of desperate men in chat rooms.