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Disposable Objects 24

Simulating Conversations
Remember the millenium bug? The general public watching in bemusement as the business world, at the behest of its IT departments, sank millions into staving off the end of the world - all because of rounding errors in software that had been written 20 or more years previously?
     Their reaction is understandable when you consider the HAL 9000 series computer that played such a central role in Stanley Kubrick’s classic film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Released in 1968, the film portrayed a computer that could hold intelligent conversations, and certainly would not be fooled by a two-digit year. According to the film, the HAL 9000 series first became functional in January 1997, and by now would have gone through several service packs, if not been superseded altogether.
     So just how far are we from Kubrick’s vision? To find out, we paid a visit to MegaHAL at www.amristar.com.au/~hutch/megahal/. MegaHAL is the brainchild of Jason Hutchens, and is described as a ‘conversation simulator’ in the great tradition of the ELIZA program developed at MIT in the 1960s. MegaHAL has been entered into the Loebner contest, held in the Computer Museum on Boston each year and based on the famous Turing test for artificial intelligence.
     Jason’s web site includes quite a detailed description of how MegaHAL works, and some samples of the program’s conversational style. For example:
     “Star Treck is the state of enfeeblement brought on by age.” 
     “In the beginning there was a word. The word was Bill.”
     “I could shake my tiny fist and swear I wasn’t wrong, but what’s the sense in arguing when you’re much too busy returning to the lavatory.”
     “Chess is a fun sport, when played with shotguns.”
     And is this a reference to Linux?
     “Within my penguin lies a torrid story of hate and love.”

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