On May 9, 2005, at 9:38 AM, Warren Ockrassa wrote:
On May 9, 2005, at 8:30 AM, Gary Denton wrote:
I have suspected "Erik" is actually an Eliza-type program that responds
to my statements with non-specific phrases that accuse me of lacking
understanding and and stringing together phrases like an Eliza program.
The program will be triggered by the preceding sentence.
And sure enough, it was.
There is never any factual content he indicates he is disagreeing with and it can barely be called criticism. Just an insult program that states some people notably myself are putting phrases together in ways he is not familiar with or the reply had a certain proportion of words he uses in the response.
It also fails even to construct decent logical arguments. Interactions
with "Erik" are a veritable library of logical fallacies. Any given
exchange is likely to begin and/or end with ad hominem attacks, and arguments
from conclusions are sprinkled throughout.
This explains something else. I've noticed he (it) doesn't seem to be
capable of *maintaining* a discussion. Not only is there no factual
basis given for the discord, but the program then claims that its "time"
is being wasted, and it withdraws entirely from further correspondence.
There's a much more parsimonious explanation (two, actually, but I already suggested one in another note) but it would be pretty damn vicious to air it, so I won't.
I would venture to suggest that it matters not whether "Erik" is a human or an (evidently fairly weak) AI posing as a human. I have found all correspondence with this "Erik" to be unenlightening.
It reminds me of tae kwon do sparring. Sometimes, I am paired with a superior belt. I rarely score points or win bouts with them, but I nearly always learn something -- about the art or about myself. Sometimes, I am paired with a lower belt. While I may score points against and win matches with them, I learn much less in those pairings. Perhaps it is true that they learn something about themselves or the art from me. I don't know.
I do know that this "Erik" -- biological being or artificial intelligence -- seems to demonstrate no learning from his (it's) epistolary sparring on Brin-L.
Dave
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