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The first thing I read this time around was the Experimental AI piece. I appreciated the brief taxonomy of artificial intelligence that it provided, but I was very intrigued by the Terminal Time piece which the author described. I wanted to know more, so I found the Terminal Time website, and I was shocked to see that Terminal Time was a project from 1999. They fit all the narrative, audio, and video footage to be synchronized together on a 32 GB external drive, which I found to be simultaneously impressive and questionable. I was hoping for a more serious algorithmic pairing of events, but the architecture suggested to me that the project was far simpler.

After that, I read Hemmingway’s Hills Like White Elephants. After I started reading it, I felt like I had read it before. After a page and half or so, I was hooked. I finished the article very quickly, and then I was frustrated because I didn’t understand the point. Then I got on the internet and learned about Hemmingway’s “Iceberg Theory”, and how the whole story was about abortion. After gathering the pieces of my blown mind, I learned a lot about how I can use dialogue to transfix my user, even while only subtly mentioning the actual purpose of the conversation.

The Eliza Effect:- This is such a simple response to how viewers interact with games that have some form of AI in them. I feel that this sort of ‘simple’ ‘classic’ technology is what all of the games that I  strive to make are based on. Interaction in the form of playing games is something that our culture has done since birth. From online play with a single friend to thousands of people interacting over an entire world, this human-human relationship has had some sort of digital barrier or ‘translator’. This Eliza Effect passage actually applies very well to the kind of work I want to make. I wish to curate, display, and examine that human-computer(machine)-human system of interaction in my sculpture, performance, and video work.

Hills Like White Elephants:- Such a since of anticipation, unease, distance and all around stress. I interpret this distant yet loving conversation between these two lovers as a conversation of sorrowful acceptance. I feel like she may be pregnant and facing an abortion. The ‘hills like white elephants’ reference may be pertaining to a ‘perfect’ body such as one of a child, also the continued talk about the fertile landscape and the man always trying to be engaging and comforting while the woman concentrates on the surroundings and environment contribute to my interpretation. I love the dry style of writing and style. The lack of style is what makes this such an interesting dialogue.

Hills Like White Elephants –

I love this story. The tense, argumentative atmosphere is built up entirely through the dialogue. Somehow, even though there’s almost no exposition in this story, I got a very clear picture of “the man” and “the girl” sitting at a table, attempting to navigate the issue of “the operation” (presumably, an abortion). The little exposition there is has some great symbolic touches. The girl reaches out to the bead curtain, takes hold of the strings, and says: “And you think then we’ll be all right and be happy.” She’s reaching out to a faraway dream, a future in which she gets the abortion and she and her man are happy. She toys with the idea of getting the operation done, but is unable to commit to it and go through that curtain.

The Eliza Effect –

It was very interesting reading about the different ‘scripts’ that Eliza had. The default was to assume the role of a ‘Doctor’, a therapist-like character that seemed to restate questions back to the user more often than not. This makes me wonder about the future of therapy – is it possible that we could have automated therapists in the future, and that merely typing back and forth to a bot could help you navigate emotional issues?

Dreams of Uni 

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/asl1/alexleecyoafinal.html

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Expressive AI

This reading, while very technical in nature, forced me to consider a few things that had never occurred to me before. It never occurred to me that the subtle differences in the methods used by AI developers would manifest themselves into separate schools of thought. The interactionists use a model based on reacting to changes in an established environment, while the GOFAIs use the sense-plan-act model. These two groups have similar goals; they both desire to create an AI with a thought pattern close enough to reality to be classified as actual intelligence and not mere coded reaction. The interactionists in particular seek to make a being that can be considered alive. Next to these lofty goals, the goals of the artist seem significantly less noble. Artists, according to the writer, are simply after a believable AI system, not one that actually embodies intelligence but that merely seems intelligent. For the more technical research groups, an AI system is the end product of their labors. For an artist, the AI is just a tool, and the interaction with an audience is the end goal.

Eliza

The Eliza effect is a common occurrence when someone utilizes and open-ended AI personality. At first, you play right into the expected patterns, and the AI responds in a very believable way. However, as the conversation continues it soon becomes apparent that the AI follows a discernible pattern of speech that can be easily broken with the right word choice. Some other systems of conversation AI employ obvious road blocks that break the immersion of the player as well. Galatea for instance will simply tell you that you cannot do something. I think perhaps Facade has the best method of getting around this barrier. The characters of facade, if you say something they don’t understand or can’t form a response to, will just move on with the conversation as though you never said anything, or change topics to one they can respond to. This comes close to the response that some people actually give when they’ve misheard you or don’t know how to react to what you just said.

The Face:

I thought the most interesting part was how much game developers use a characters gaze to direct or hint to the player. I hadn’t noticed that before. I guess thats a pretty good reason for making characters heads larger than they should be. The rest of the article was just about social cues, nothing new.

Hills Like White Elephants:

What did they want to do but didn’t do?! They talked about something that she didn’t want to do but kind of wanted to do, and he didn’t want to do it but wouldn’t mind if she did, and I never got what that thing was! Kind of a frustrating read, feels so unresolved.

Eliza Effect

While I was unaware of the term Eliza effect, I was familiar with the boom/bust of AI discussions when I began to read this chapter. I was most intrigued by the examples of those who, after interacting with the system for time sufficient enough to realize it’s limitations and break it down, choose to play into the system’s processes and willfully suspend (even further) disbelief; a look into the psyche of those people. I was also surprised by, but agree with, the author’s statement that the audience’s belief in the system’s intelligence comes from their own interpretation and expectation, not from the system’s complexity; ie. A simpler system (yes/no answer) provides the audience to fill in the gap and attribute more to the system… ironic, as we often look at advancements in AI beginning with more complex technology.

 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Every speaker is given a uniqueness based on their language: clean and clinical, dialectic and conversational. I love the slight characterization that the interviewer attributes to themselves by their noting of the interviewee’s finger flexions in B.I. #48. It is especially funny when he comments on their “increasingly annoying” quality. Overall: an interesting look into the inner-workings of the male mind as it relates to (various) interactions with the female (with the exception of #42, who mentions his father’s work and discusses the disgusting quality of the ‘bare and uncovered’ male in a restroom).

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