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From: smith@umn-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: AI joke that anyone can understand
Message-ID: <12000001@umn-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Mar-85 10:01:00 EST
Article-I.D.: umn-cs.12000001
Posted: Thu Mar 14 10:01:00 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 17-Mar-85 00:43:35 EST
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Nf-From: umn-cs!smith    Mar 14 09:01:00 1985


  I don't know if this is a joke 'anyone' can understand, but I still
think the BEST AI joke was an old story about Eliza and a case of
mistaken identity.  The whole story is in "Machines Who Think."

  In the early 60s BBN was doing research on remote computing, timesharing,
etc. on their PDP-1 and a couple of the researchers had installed teletypes
and modems in their homes.  One day, a VP walked up to the PDP-1's teletype
which showed the message: "Type in what you want to say and end it with a
period."

  The vice president was used to the idea of using the teletype to converse
with other people (like one does with Unix 'write') so he assumed that the
terminal was connected to one of the researchers at home.  In fact, the
PDP-1 was running Eliza at the time.  The conversation went somethin like
this:

VP: Can I take over the machine some time this afternoon.

Eliza:  Why do you ask?

VP: I have some potential customers I want to demonstrate it to.

Eliza: Is this important to you?

VP: Of course it is.

I don't remember the rest of the conversation in detail, except that the
VP got more and more annoyed while Eliza, of course, continued to question
and pry without commiting to anything.  Finally the VP ordered the guy to
phone him, but forgot to end his sentencce with a period, so Eliza said no
more.  This made the VP really mad so he finally called the researcher
himself:

VP:  Why are being so obtuse?  (yelling)

Researcher:  Why are you asking why I am being so obtuse?

which is, of course, a classic Eliza reply.