Interestingly, a slower pace of response, more imitative of human conversation than modern-day computer reply, can also be found in a system like the Apple II running some interactive fiction program that has to go to disk all the time. But it’s certainly a noticeable feature of systems with a teletype interface.

What modulates the user’s expectations here is not just the design of the system, but the tight coupling between that design, its material context, and its social/cultural situation. Thus the (possibly apocryphal) story of the VP who mistakenly thought Eliza was a truculent employee, or that of Weizenbaum’s secretary, who eventually asked him to leave the room while she “spoke” to the program, despite knowing full well it was a program.

The context seems to me to be the overall cultural and individual situation in which a person has some idea of what a psychotherapist is. This could come from being in therapy, from popular representations of therapy, or perhaps from being a therapist. And, at the level of form rather than a particular role, there is a context as well. We also have expectations about and understandings of what a computer program is and what a play is.

As for the question, What makes Eliza impersonate a psychotherapist – data or process?, both are clearly important. By making point 6 about process intensity, we certainly didn’t mean to say that data is irrelevant, only that process is more relevant than has been acknowledged and more relevant than it is in most e-lit. Eliza/Doctor has a particular role because the program reflects the interactor’s language back (mainly due to process) but also because the program produces neutral, gentle language (mainly due to data). In contrast to most electronic literature, “content” is not king with Eliza. Modified versions of the program with different response texts, not preserving the original wording of Weizenbaum’s first program, are still “Elizas.” But that isn’t to say that data is irrelevant. If you were to change just the data and have Eliza hurl obscenities or obsessively mention cheese, that would scuttle the program as a psychotherapist impersonator and make it into something else.

My guess (and my experience from trying to create bots) is that the conceit of this narrative context — scripted into all the data and built into the presentation layer (to give meaning to the logic or processes of the bot) is what’s key to making a satisfying bot. Satisfying to whom? the reception theorist might ask. Satisfying as literature? we might ask. But for now, I’ll just say satisfying to me.

Are these features of context part of the data or part of the processes? I think these comments prove that you can’t have one at the expense of the other. In my book project, I develop a reading of Michael Mateas’ addressing the context as the realm of formal affordances and the code logic as the realm of material affordances. The latter is the set of possible input. The former is the set of input that will make sense given the developing scenario. (You can see some of this in my dissertation).

Again, for me the literary nature of this context and data is one of the barriers to entry into my category of electronic literature. Once that criteria is met (and in light of that context), I can consider the roll of the processes. But again, I feel like my position is just an inverted set of values of the one you presented in your paper.

Sure, there is plenty of complaint that the NLP fails — but there would perhaps been even more complaint if the characters were supposed to be good listeners, say, friends trying to be supportive of the player’s own problems.

Of course, one of the things I like most about Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is the fact that it has a handsome young male character who almost single-handedly invents the most powerful AI in the world in his bedroom, and happens to be named Andrew.

In all these cases (Eliza, Facade, Galatea), the inadequacy is both highlighted and also excused. It is made explicit so that we can forget about it.

What you say is certainly true about Eliza (and hopefully Facade too, for that matter).

In terms of this discussion, though, identifying general traits that made Eliza important and high-impact, if we were to name another high-level characteristic, how would we describe the one you mention?

We could call it something very general like “good design” or “cleverly covers technical weaknesses”, but those are universal design maxims, the kinds of traits one would want in any production.

I think the traits we have identified are perhaps a bit higher-level than the particular feature of Eliza you point out?

There is one other property of Eliza which was also important to its success: the simulated environment was carefully chosen to mask the weaknesses of the simulation. The Rogerian therapist (or a caricature thereof) doesn’t really need to understand what the patient is saying – he just makes a merely syntactical manipulation to turn an assertion into a question.

Facade is another example where the simulated environment was carefully chosen to cover up the simulation’s problems. The characters are neurotic and self-absorbed; they are acutely aware of the modernist worry about a lack of meaning. These aspects of their personalities are perfect for covering up some of the cases where the parser doesn’t quite understand what you are saying!

(NB I do not mean this as a criticism – it is part of the success of Facade that the authors anticipated in advance the inevitable limitations of the technology, and designed a dramatic situation which de-emphasized them).

I think your last point is right on and speaks to Nick and Andrew’s second point of criteria. Of course, I can only imagine that at least some of the literary works we are discussing, from Blade Runner to Galatea 2.2 are in direct dialogue with ELIZA.

Mark, come over to WRT when you are done here. I’ve got some assertions about Storyspace I’d like to run past you.

Though this is perhaps an archetypical ELO conference provocation, I wonder how far we’d want to extend the argument. Let’s face it: humor and metafiction are an odd couple! And do we really want to honor primarily, or exclusively, the grab and slap? If grabbing and slapping on every page is the aesthetic goal of The Unknown, why is The Unknown so long?

It might also bear consideration that the interpretation of Weizenbaum’s literary work you offer in the opening section, while shared by a number of writers including Murray, is directly contrary to the interpretation Weizenbaum himself offered. I mention this not to revive the intentional fallacy (though in this specific case it might have some bearing) but because this circumstance seems as pertinent to the reception and success of ELIZA as do the others you adduce.

Finally, might the true explanation for the ready dissemination of this program lie not so much in ease of portability and documentation as in the trivial nature of the underlying code — and the ubiquitous foundation narrative of the discursive computer, for which ELIZA users had been prepared by decades of literature?