"Probert, Matthew - Conversations with my computer" - читать интересную книгу автора (Probert Matthew)

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APPENDIX NOTES FOR PROGRAMMERS




INTRODUCTION




While some were introduced to the idea of talking to computers through Arthur
C. Clarke's book "2001", I was weaned on Star Trek. I make no apology for
never having finished reading 2001. Nor for never sitting all the way through
the film that followed, "2001, A Space Odyssey". The fact is I find them both
rather tedious! However, an interesting point comes out. Both readers of 2001
and audiences attending the film made few criticisms of HAL the talking
computer. It would appear that most people take the idea of understanding
their natural language for granted. In her book "Artificial Intelligence and
Natural Man" Margaret Boden is some what scathing of people's naivety in
accepting the idea that a computer can understand human language, even with
its subtle variations. But in fairness to the public, Margaret, how many
people in 1977 had seen a computer? Let alone learnt how to program one. The
reason people didn't wonder at HAL's quite extraordinary powers of
comprehension was that they did not see anything strange in them. "If I can
understand English, and a computer is an electronic brain, then of course it
can understand." Might go the reasoning.

Later audiences were treated to the idea of confusing computers. This idea was
used in Star Trek to defeat several unpleasant computers whose logic had got
the better of their human companions, and in Doctor Who where a certain
computer (in "the Green Death") was particularly unpleasant. This latter
computer was destroyed following being asked a paradoxical question. The
public were awakening to the idea that computer's may be bright, but they're
not brilliant!

Enough of science fiction, what of the reality? The matter is that people are
fascinated by the idea of "thinking machines". And what better sort of
thinking machine than one that can converse in your own language? During the
1960s a lot of work was undertaken by the psychology and psychiatric
professions in modelling neurosis with computer simulations.

In 1962 K.M. Colby, a psychoanalyst, attempted to model free association in
psychotherapy with a computer system he called a "simulation of a neurotic
process". The computer modelled a woman who believes that her father has
abandoned her, but cannot consciously accept that she hates him. The computer
operator plays the role of the psychotherapist with this system. In his book
"Experimental Treatment of Neurotic Computer Programs", K.M. Colby details the
following interaction between the computer and the therapist;