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Choices in Eliza

That almost completes the description of our version of Eliza. There is one gap in the structure to fill in. This concerns what happens when several possible responses are possible. For instance

i wouldn't pay money for a computer

fits patterns [== money ==] and [== computer ==]. Eliza deals with this in a simple way: it selects one of the matching patterns at random, and generates a response based on that one. Special tests, like whether a sentence is particularly short or long, are just treated as special kinds of patterns that can be matched (though not using the notation above).


Look back over the dialogue on pages [*] and [*] to see where Eliza departs from what would be expected of an intelligent (but non-committal) human respondant. What do you think are the limitations of pattern matching as a means of producing a response. How could Eliza be improved?



Cogsweb Project: luisgh@cogs.susx.ac.uk