Step 1: In 1966, a publication by Joseph Weizenbaum of MIT unwittingly unleashed a controversy in the burgeoning field of Artificial Intelligence. To demonstrate the applicability of research in transformation rules for extracting information from text, he developed a program named ELIZA that seemed to carry on a meaningful conversation with the user. In fact, ELIZA did little more than read the user's input, match it against a set of pre-recorded sentence patterns, find a matching pattern, extract some of the words from the original sentence, and create a response containing the extracted words. ELIZA functioned best in the style of a Rogerian psychotherapist, using noncommittal responses to elicit further thoughts from the patient.

Here is an example excerpted from a famous conversation with ELIZA (ELIZA's responses are in italics):

Men are all alike. In what way?  They're always bugging us about something or other. Can you think of a specific example?  Well, my boyfriend made me come here. Your boyfriend made you come here? He says I'm depressed much of the time. I am sorry to hear you are depressed.  It's true. I am unhappy. Do you think coming here will help you not to be unhappy? I need some help; that much seems certain. What would it mean to you if you got some help?  Perhaps I could learn to get along with my mother. Tell me more about your family. My mother takes care of me. Who else in your family takes care of you? My father. Your father. ... 

from "ELIZA - A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication between Man and Machine", Joseph Weizenbaum, Communications of the ACM, January, 1966, Volume 9, Number 1, pp. 36-45.

The resulting controversy was about whether ELIZA had actually passed the Turing test, or whether a program like ELIZA ever could do that. Weizenbaum eventually became so disgusted with some people's reliance on ELIZA that he renounced the entire field of Artificial Intelligence.

Step 2: From the example above, examine the input and response that contain the word "unhappy". Describe what you think the pattern was that Eliza used to create the response, and how the response was formed from the pattern. Explain what caused ELIZA to discuss the interrogator's family.

Step 3: Many systems have been created that replicate or improve on ELIZA's transformation rules. One such system may be found at Cleverbot(http://www.cleverbot.com/). Visit that page now, and carry on a conversation. As you do, try to deduce what patterns are being recognized, and what responses are generated. Record your observations on your lab sheet.

Step 4: Continue your conversation by using at least 6 different sentences that contain the word "sorry". What do you think ELIZA's rules are for sentences involving "sorry"?

Step 5: We will now continue by examining Cleverbot, a more modern conversationalist that has learned by carrying on hundreds of thousands of conversations online.

Read the Wikipedia article about Cleverbot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleverbot).

Read Cleverbot's "snips" gallery (http://www.cleverbot.com/me/cleverbot) of actual interactions users have reported with Cleverbot.

Step 6: Fire away! It's your turn to converse with Cleverbot. Attempt to engage Cleverbot in interesting conversation. Did anything surprising or impressive occur? Did you try typing in things reported by other users? Did you get the same responses? On your lab sheet, summarize your activities with ELIZA and Cleverbot. In what situations might Cleverbot's capabilities be useful?