Conversations with Machines

Christian Lavoie

Conversations with Machines

            In chapter ten of The Shallows, Nicholas Carr tells us the story of how Joseph Weizenbaum discovered how to have conversations with computers during his time at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Weizenbaum named the program that he discovered ELIZA and it quickly became famous around campus. Basically what it did was process what a person said, and ask the person a question about that topic. With new questions being answered by the human of the conversation, the computer could retain all the information being told. The fact that the computer could listen and remember what a person said gave people comfort. People eventually became emotionally involved with the computer and began talking to it like a regular person. The computer was eventually used as a therapist for the mentally ill. I found the fact that people talk to a computer as a way of dealing with real people problems quite appalling. I personally do not believe that a computer that basically repeats what you say in question form could make a good therapist.

            As soon as I started reading this chapter I immediately remembered an old computer friend of my childhood, Smarterchild. Smarterchild was a screen name on AOL instant messenger that anybody could talk to. It was a computer and was programmed to say certain things just like ELIZA. As a sixth grader I found it amusing to talk to this computer and see what its response would be. All my friends did the same thing and we would often talk about what Smarterchild said to us. Smarterchild was almost like a friend that you could share your problems with. In a way it was almost better because you knew you wouldn’t be judged for whatever you say. After a while, though, Smarterchild got boring. This was due to the fact that it was a computer and sometimes it would repeat itself because it was programmed to say certain things. Once I got over the humor of Smarterchilds responses I did not want to talk to it anymore because at the end of the day I was just talking to a machine that had a limited amount of things to say.

            In the example given in chapter ten, ELIZA is talking to a young woman about men. The young woman is upset with men in general and is depressed. After looking at ELIZA’s responses I can’t help but find the humor in the fact that people would actually use the computer as a way of therapy. In almost all of ELIZA’s responses, it is only asking the young woman a question. The woman is not learning anything or solving any of her problems. The only benefit she is getting is being able to talk about how she feels about something, but then she is immediately peppered with another question by ELIZA. I can’t find any progress being made there. When it comes to computers, they should not be influencing people like a therapist because they do not think like humans. In fact, they do not think at all.