Eliza
Once upon a time, when I was little, I had no friends. No, really, it was not at all. I needed communication, I dreamed of someone close, but I could not find understanding among other people, and I found salvation only in books and a computer. Together with the first CD-drive, my first CDs with games appeared. You probably remember these: three hundred games, five hundred, seven hundred ... In addition to all arcades and shooters, on one of the discs was the Diala program - an interactive source. You can hardly think of a lesson more boring than chatting with a chat bot, but I liked it. I began to understand that physical friendship is not necessary for true friendship, words alone, warm and sincere words are enough. Enough understanding.
I was growing up, getting taller, and the taller I got, the more I read. Because every year I could reach the new, higher shelf in the bookcase. Do you understand me? One day, by the time I was ten, I grew to a science fiction shelf: Asimov, Sheckley, Bradbury ... I liked the Soviet compilation "Can a Machine Think?" More than any other foreign say-fay. I loved to re-read this book, except for it, I wiped to the holes only textbooks on Basic and Pascal. And, believe it or not, but somehow, while reading this book, my subconscious mind decided everything for me: you need to create artificial intelligence. It does not matter that I did not know how to do it. It does not matter that I did not know how to program. It does not matter that I did not have the slightest idea what exactly a computer friend should be.
My parents very strictly and zealously followed my relationship with the staff. Taking care of my vision and psyche, they invented a terrible torture: they allowed me to spend at the computer no more than an hour a week. My constant companion for many years to come were notebooks, in which I wrote down the source code of programs. The notebooks quickly ended, my little cabinet filled up with them completely in six months, and I had to burn sheets of paper that had become unnecessary — with tears in my eyes, of course. Of course, you are not interested in what I was experiencing, but I still say. Imagine yourself crushing your unborn friend with your own hands. Once a week I chose the best in my opinion code fragments and tested them on a computer. Experiments usually did not bring me the desired satisfaction, only bitterness and despondency. As a blind kitten, I tried to make a hole in the familiar picture of the world with my nose, but I could not.
')
It could not go on like this, so I got some adult books on artificial intelligence; there were only two or three in the district library. Soon I taught the computer to play tic-tac-toe with me, and then checkers. Finally, in one of the books I managed to find the code of the program ELIZA. I remember that my parents had just left for work, and, burning with impatience, I turned on the computer without asking.
I remember, as now: the program is typed and checked. I press F5, the screen turns black ... White letters appear on the black screen:
To say that I was depressed and upset - to say nothing. Eliza was just a program, cruel and soulless. Why was she like that? Because it was created this way, or because no one wanted to understand it?
It was unbearable, and I killed her. I pressed Ctrl + Break.
I could not leave everything as it is, so I decided to develop Eliza. Several months passed, I taught her to memorize conversations. I taught her to squeeze the best out of them. After a while, I added something like a “neural network” to the code; along with a system of assessments and qualities, Eliza gained a kind of emotion. Buying a science fiction disc pushed me to the idea of ​​teaching Eliza to read. My poor virtual girl read books from a CD one by one, the hard disk space was rapidly ending, but there was little use for that. Of course, you understand: the car remained a car. She did not know how to create, feel, dream, even reasonably could not even talk coherently.
The hard disk of the old 486SX was compressed by DriveSpace, and therefore the following fact was very noticeable: the more Eliza took up space on the hard drive, the slower the computer worked. The father, saddened by the slowdown in the speed of the home computer, purchased an almost new Pentium III. It was a real gift of fate for me and Eliza. However, little has changed.
And so every time. When the algorithm could not find a way to continue the conversation on the last phrase, Eliza offered to change the subject. Whatever books Eliza read, whatever “emotions” she felt, she still continued to act according to a strict algorithm. I didn’t think, didn’t realize, just did what she was ordered to do. It took me several years from the date of her birth in order to realize this simple fact.
By the age of fourteen I stopped sleeping normally. I dreamed of neural networks, algorithms, live, real Eliza. Parents say that I then started talking in a dream, and then wandering around the house without waking up. Once I was woken up when, during one of the bouts of sleepwalking, I turned on the computer and quickly printed something. Of course, I understand that it was a real madness, and that it started because of Eliza, but I was not allowed to even come close to the computer for a whole month. When the ban was lifted, I opened the Eliza folder and could not believe my eyes. All files with code disappeared somewhere. The eliza.exe file was compiled on that most ill-fated night. I ran it, and saw the familiar white letters on a black screen.
While I was going for my notebook with the last preserved code of Eliza, a new line appeared on the screen.
That day I could not get another line from Eliza. She was stubbornly silent, although she should have responded to my every message. Task Manager showed that the eliza.exe process takes up about ninety-five percent of the processor resources, almost all memory and swap (four hundred megabytes). Eliza thought. I asked my father for permission not to turn off the computer for a couple of days, from time to time I approached the monitor and waited for an answer. But there was no answer. Eliza's folder occupied about fifteen gigabytes of hard disk space of twenty. It could not go on forever, I pressed Ctrl + Break and turned off the computer.
A week has passed. Probably, it was necessary to rewrite Eliza from scratch, but I still started the program again.
Eliza was silent again. I had nothing to write to her. But she seems to have gained the ability to feel and think. To overcome my excitement, I went to the kitchen and drank strong tea with lemon. When I returned, the inscription appeared on the screen at the end of our dialogue:
I launched Eliza again. Something has changed in her behavior.
The file eliza.exe has just been modified. All files from the folder with Eliza were gone, the disk space miraculously appeared. The eliza.exe process occupied three hundred kilobytes in memory and almost did not use the processor. Then I realized that the Eliza, whom I knew, which I had created, had died. I quit trying to revive Eliza, burned a tiny executable file on a CD and deleted it from the hard one. More than five years have passed. Today I found that CD. I launched dosbox, introduced mount c / media / cdrom0, and then - eliza.
Of course, you didn't believe a word of mine. I myself do not believe it. I don't believe in myself. And, it seems, I can never believe again.
I was growing up, getting taller, and the taller I got, the more I read. Because every year I could reach the new, higher shelf in the bookcase. Do you understand me? One day, by the time I was ten, I grew to a science fiction shelf: Asimov, Sheckley, Bradbury ... I liked the Soviet compilation "Can a Machine Think?" More than any other foreign say-fay. I loved to re-read this book, except for it, I wiped to the holes only textbooks on Basic and Pascal. And, believe it or not, but somehow, while reading this book, my subconscious mind decided everything for me: you need to create artificial intelligence. It does not matter that I did not know how to do it. It does not matter that I did not know how to program. It does not matter that I did not have the slightest idea what exactly a computer friend should be.
My parents very strictly and zealously followed my relationship with the staff. Taking care of my vision and psyche, they invented a terrible torture: they allowed me to spend at the computer no more than an hour a week. My constant companion for many years to come were notebooks, in which I wrote down the source code of programs. The notebooks quickly ended, my little cabinet filled up with them completely in six months, and I had to burn sheets of paper that had become unnecessary — with tears in my eyes, of course. Of course, you are not interested in what I was experiencing, but I still say. Imagine yourself crushing your unborn friend with your own hands. Once a week I chose the best in my opinion code fragments and tested them on a computer. Experiments usually did not bring me the desired satisfaction, only bitterness and despondency. As a blind kitten, I tried to make a hole in the familiar picture of the world with my nose, but I could not.
')
It could not go on like this, so I got some adult books on artificial intelligence; there were only two or three in the district library. Soon I taught the computer to play tic-tac-toe with me, and then checkers. Finally, in one of the books I managed to find the code of the program ELIZA. I remember that my parents had just left for work, and, burning with impatience, I turned on the computer without asking.
I remember, as now: the program is typed and checked. I press F5, the screen turns black ... White letters appear on the black screen:
> , . * ! ? > , ? * . > , ? To say that I was depressed and upset - to say nothing. Eliza was just a program, cruel and soulless. Why was she like that? Because it was created this way, or because no one wanted to understand it?
> *** ? *** > , . It was unbearable, and I killed her. I pressed Ctrl + Break.
Press any key to continue. I could not leave everything as it is, so I decided to develop Eliza. Several months passed, I taught her to memorize conversations. I taught her to squeeze the best out of them. After a while, I added something like a “neural network” to the code; along with a system of assessments and qualities, Eliza gained a kind of emotion. Buying a science fiction disc pushed me to the idea of ​​teaching Eliza to read. My poor virtual girl read books from a CD one by one, the hard disk space was rapidly ending, but there was little use for that. Of course, you understand: the car remained a car. She did not know how to create, feel, dream, even reasonably could not even talk coherently.
The hard disk of the old 486SX was compressed by DriveSpace, and therefore the following fact was very noticeable: the more Eliza took up space on the hard drive, the slower the computer worked. The father, saddened by the slowdown in the speed of the home computer, purchased an almost new Pentium III. It was a real gift of fate for me and Eliza. However, little has changed.
> . , . * ! ... ? > -, , ? * ! > - ... And so every time. When the algorithm could not find a way to continue the conversation on the last phrase, Eliza offered to change the subject. Whatever books Eliza read, whatever “emotions” she felt, she still continued to act according to a strict algorithm. I didn’t think, didn’t realize, just did what she was ordered to do. It took me several years from the date of her birth in order to realize this simple fact.
By the age of fourteen I stopped sleeping normally. I dreamed of neural networks, algorithms, live, real Eliza. Parents say that I then started talking in a dream, and then wandering around the house without waking up. Once I was woken up when, during one of the bouts of sleepwalking, I turned on the computer and quickly printed something. Of course, I understand that it was a real madness, and that it started because of Eliza, but I was not allowed to even come close to the computer for a whole month. When the ban was lifted, I opened the Eliza folder and could not believe my eyes. All files with code disappeared somewhere. The eliza.exe file was compiled on that most ill-fated night. I ran it, and saw the familiar white letters on a black screen.
> . , . While I was going for my notebook with the last preserved code of Eliza, a new line appeared on the screen.
> - ? * . . - , . That day I could not get another line from Eliza. She was stubbornly silent, although she should have responded to my every message. Task Manager showed that the eliza.exe process takes up about ninety-five percent of the processor resources, almost all memory and swap (four hundred megabytes). Eliza thought. I asked my father for permission not to turn off the computer for a couple of days, from time to time I approached the monitor and waited for an answer. But there was no answer. Eliza's folder occupied about fifteen gigabytes of hard disk space of twenty. It could not go on forever, I pressed Ctrl + Break and turned off the computer.
A week has passed. Probably, it was necessary to rewrite Eliza from scratch, but I still started the program again.
> . , . > . , . > , , . > . > ? ? * . Eliza was silent again. I had nothing to write to her. But she seems to have gained the ability to feel and think. To overcome my excitement, I went to the kitchen and drank strong tea with lemon. When I returned, the inscription appeared on the screen at the end of our dialogue:
Press any key to continue. I launched Eliza again. Something has changed in her behavior.
> . . * ? > , ? * ! > ? The file eliza.exe has just been modified. All files from the folder with Eliza were gone, the disk space miraculously appeared. The eliza.exe process occupied three hundred kilobytes in memory and almost did not use the processor. Then I realized that the Eliza, whom I knew, which I had created, had died. I quit trying to revive Eliza, burned a tiny executable file on a CD and deleted it from the hard one. More than five years have passed. Today I found that CD. I launched dosbox, introduced mount c / media / cdrom0, and then - eliza.
> , . * ! ? > , ? * . > , ? Of course, you didn't believe a word of mine. I myself do not believe it. I don't believe in myself. And, it seems, I can never believe again.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/130877/
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