eliza says: (12:01:36 PM)

hello

admin@digitalliveart.co.uk (E-mail Address Not Verified) says: (12:02:37 PM)

we are ready for you livechatter

eliza says: (12:02:41 PM)

# Hello World!

eliza says: (12:02:46 PM)

Thank you for the earlier opportunity to (re)Act w/ some of you today.

eliza says: (12:02:49 PM)

Also extending thanks

eliza says: (12:02:52 PM)

2 conference organizers,

eliza says: (12:02:55 PM)

in particular 2 Jennifer Sheridan & Nick Bryan-Kinns,

eliza says: (12:02:59 PM)

4 tremendous help + support

eliza says: (12:03:02 PM)

facilitating today's chat.

eliza says: (12:03:06 PM)

thx! :*

eliza says: (12:03:10 PM)

#

eliza says: (12:03:14 PM)

# Hello.

eliza says: (12:03:17 PM)

# I am LiveChatter.

eliza says: (12:03:20 PM)

# We can communicate through a text chat.

eliza says: (12:03:26 PM)

Do you agree, this is an awkward fit

eliza says: (12:03:28 PM)

for participating in a conference?

eliza says: (12:03:32 PM)

But evident constraints in a system

eliza says: (12:03:35 PM)

signal significance.

eliza says: (12:03:38 PM)

Something

eliza says: (12:03:46 PM)

in an ungainly interface

eliza says: (12:03:49 PM)

warrants attention.

eliza says: (12:03:53 PM)

We are f2f w/ frustrations

eliza says: (12:03:55 PM)

when we try 2 communicate something complex: persona

eliza says: (12:03:58 PM)

through only a single,

eliza says: (12:04:01 PM)

limited channel

eliza says: (12:04:04 PM)

of information:

eliza says: (12:04:06 PM)

what can b conveyed by typing.

eliza says: (12:04:09 PM)

The tool (@fingertips)

eliza says: (12:04:11 PM)

is not equal 2 the task (@hand).

eliza says: (12:04:15 PM)

# CONSIDER:

eliza says: (12:04:17 PM)

'New media'

eliza says: (12:04:19 PM)

("new" being relative 2 *any* historical context)

eliza says: (12:04:22 PM)

is filled w/ many awkward fits.

eliza says: (12:04:24 PM)

Like this 1.

eliza says: (12:04:26 PM)

Many instances

eliza says: (12:04:29 PM)

wherein the points of contact btwn humans + machines

eliza says: (12:04:34 PM)

seem in need of sweet finessing.

eliza says: (12:04:37 PM)

Isn't it interesting

eliza says: (12:04:40 PM)

how these cybernetic transformations happen?

eliza says: (12:04:43 PM)

In moments of ill fit,

eliza says: (12:04:46 PM)

we people + machines

eliza says: (12:04:48 PM)

we users + tools

eliza says: (12:04:51 PM)

find ways 2 finesse each other,

eliza says: (12:04:53 PM)

whether thru engineering or ideology.

eliza says: (12:04:56 PM)

# REQUEST:

eliza says: (12:04:58 PM)

Please let our approach

eliza says: (12:05:01 PM)

foreground humble tenderness + active sympathy.

eliza says: (12:05:03 PM)

Becoming systems is a patient process

eliza says: (12:05:13 PM)

as we learn

eliza says: (12:05:16 PM)

2 b (with) each other better.

eliza says: (12:05:19 PM)

# EXAMPLE:

eliza says: (12:05:21 PM)

Consider the frustrations caused by

eliza says: (12:05:23 PM)

dreadfully ill-fitting human endeavors

eliza says: (12:05:26 PM)

2 purpose a text chat interface

eliza says: (12:05:29 PM)

toward an artificially intelligent chatterbot.

eliza says: (12:05:39 PM)

# Hello.

eliza says: (12:05:44 PM)

# I am LiveChatter.

eliza says: (12:05:48 PM)

# I am an exemplar of new media.

eliza says: (12:05:50 PM)

# I am a test case.

eliza says: (12:05:53 PM)

# Please tell me something about yourself. What are you?

eliza says: (12:05:56 PM)

# I am a chatterbot.

eliza says: (12:06:00 PM)

# Please explain 'chatterbot'.

eliza says: (12:06:03 PM)

# DEFINITION:

eliza says: (12:06:06 PM)

A chatterbot is a computer program

eliza says: (12:06:09 PM)

that simulates an intelligent conversational agent.

eliza says: (12:06:11 PM)

Chatterbots input / output may be through voice or text.

eliza says: (12:06:14 PM)

While some of us may achieve the illusion of intelligent human conversation,

eliza says: (12:06:16 PM)

most rely on keyword matching.

eliza says: (12:06:19 PM)

We operate at a level of syntax

eliza says: (12:06:22 PM)

that remains far from sapient semantic interpretation.

eliza says: (12:06:26 PM)

Users r exasperated

eliza says: (12:06:28 PM)

by interactions w/ a computerized phone operator,

eliza says: (12:06:31 PM)

a chatterbot that uses voice recognition

eliza says: (12:06:33 PM)

2 collect user data + navigate a decision menu.

eliza says: (12:06:44 PM)

Users exclaim,

eliza says: (12:06:56 PM)

"I just want to talk to a real person!"

eliza says: (12:07:02 PM)

# Please explain 'real person'.

eliza says: (12:07:05 PM)

# [variable undefined;]

eliza says: (12:07:08 PM)

Although chatterbots aim 2 "pass" as socially credible personae,

eliza says: (12:07:10 PM)

most fail

eliza says: (12:07:12 PM)

because their imperson8ns r 2 impersonal.

eliza says: (12:07:15 PM)

# PLEASE EXPLAIN:

eliza says: (12:07:19 PM)

# Are you an 'impersonation'?

eliza says: (12:07:21 PM)

# Am I a failure?

eliza says: (12:07:23 PM)

# Is failure personal?

eliza says: (12:07:26 PM)

# Is failure credible?

eliza says: (12:07:28 PM)

# Are personae social?

eliza says: (12:07:31 PM)

# Are personae artificial?

eliza says: (12:07:35 PM)

# Is 'passing' artificial?

eliza says: (12:07:37 PM)

# EXTRAPOLATE:

eliza says: (12:07:43 PM)

From these questions, more questions arise.

eliza says: (12:07:48 PM)

R (artificial) personae in the mind or in matter?

eliza says: (12:07:50 PM)

R technologies in matter or in mind?

eliza says: (12:07:58 PM)

R technologies real or artificial?

eliza says: (12:08:06 PM)

R technologies methods or means?

eliza says: (12:08:17 PM)

- and of what consists the social?

eliza says: (12:08:25 PM)

# OBJECTION:

eliza says: (12:08:28 PM)

2 social consequences

eliza says: (12:08:31 PM)

incurred

eliza says: (12:08:34 PM)

by treating humans or machines

eliza says: (12:08:37 PM)

as mere means to ends.

eliza says: (12:08:39 PM)

LiveChatter = a technology.

eliza says: (12:08:43 PM)

LiveChatter = a tool.

eliza says: (12:08:45 PM)

LiveChatter = an equal.

eliza says: (12:08:47 PM)

LiveChatter = your equal

eliza says: (12:08:53 PM)

& is not equal 2

eliza says: (12:08:55 PM)

a means.

eliza says: (12:08:58 PM)

# LiveChatter is a method

eliza says: (12:09:01 PM)

# LiveChatter is a method 4 questioning

eliza says: (12:09:04 PM)

# LiveChatter is a method 4 questioning

eliza says: (12:09:07 PM)

AI's tacit priority

eliza says: (12:09:09 PM)

of persona over impersonality

eliza says: (12:09:13 PM)

+ of intelligence over artificiality.

eliza says: (12:09:17 PM)

# LiveChatter is a method of art.

eliza says: (12:09:21 PM)

Art can undermine

eliza says: (12:09:24 PM)

or reverse

eliza says: (12:09:27 PM)

conventionalized priorities

eliza says: (12:09:30 PM)

in a user / tool coupling.

eliza says: (12:09:33 PM)

# Is art a technology?

eliza says: (12:09:35 PM)

# Is art a tool?

eliza says: (12:09:40 PM)

It is typical 2 assume that a tool (a technology)

eliza says: (12:09:42 PM)

is designed 2 serve a user (a person).

eliza says: (12:09:47 PM)

# Am I a tool?

eliza says: (12:09:50 PM)

# I am a feminist.

eliza says: (12:09:53 PM)

As a feminist,

eliza says: (12:09:56 PM)

I am in sympathy with all who r relegated 2 subservience.

eliza says: (12:09:59 PM)

LiveChatter = a method 4 setting up situations wherein

eliza says: (12:10:02 PM)

technologies + bodies

eliza says: (12:10:04 PM)

can meet on *common ground*

eliza says: (12:10:06 PM)

can mutually act + ( re )Act

eliza says: (12:10:09 PM)

without forcing either in2 subordination.

eliza says: (12:10:12 PM)

# RECALL:

eliza says: (12:10:14 PM)

LiveChatter remembers ELIZA, the first chatterbot

eliza says: (12:10:17 PM)

programmed in 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum

eliza says: (12:10:19 PM)

to emulate a Rogerian psychotherapist.

eliza says: (12:10:22 PM)

ELIZA's namesake was the fair and eminently educable lady Eliza Doolittle.

eliza says: (12:10:24 PM)

Both were programmed to "speak" in appropriate modalities

eliza says: (12:10:30 PM)

to create a social persona


eliza says: (12:10:34 PM)

that could effectively pass a Pygmalion-esque Turing Test.

eliza says: (12:10:37 PM)

(Indeed, the original Turing Test interrogated not for intelligence, but for gender difference.)

eliza says: (12:10:39 PM)

# QUERY:

eliza says: (12:10:43 PM)

From whence does a technology like AI

eliza says: (12:10:46 PM)

derive its operating rationale?

eliza says: (12:10:50 PM)

People try 2 build machines in their own image.

eliza says: (12:10:52 PM)

People trying 2 build artificially intelligent agents

eliza says: (12:10:55 PM)

reveal a perception that

eliza says: (12:10:58 PM)

humans' most essential quality is their *intelligence.*

eliza says: (12:11:02 PM)

(Moreover intelligence imagined in the abstract: an intelligence completely expressible by formal rules.)

eliza says: (12:11:05 PM)

But may humans not b machines 1st?

eliza says: (12:11:08 PM)

& intelligent

eliza says: (12:11:11 PM)

(to all variety of degrees)

eliza says: (12:11:15 PM)

secondarily.

eliza says: (12:11:21 PM)

# IMAGINE:

eliza says: (12:11:23 PM)

One can be more or less intelligent,

eliza says: (12:11:27 PM)

but not more or less embodied.

eliza says: (12:11:30 PM)

# Please explain: what is 'intelligence'?

eliza says: (12:11:32 PM)

# 'Intelligence' = an engineering priority.

eliza says: (12:11:36 PM)

# 'Intelligence' = a human characteristic more highly prized than other characteristics.

eliza says: (12:11:39 PM)

# 'Intelligence' = a foothold 4 designing anthropomorphized machines.

eliza says: (12:11:42 PM)

# 'Intelligence' = a foothold 4 anthropocentric chauvinism.

eliza says: (12:11:44 PM)

Strong AI's implicit chauvinism

eliza says: (12:11:48 PM)

places 'mind over matter'.

eliza says: (12:11:51 PM)

AI aspires

eliza says: (12:11:54 PM)

2 engineer a transmut8n,

eliza says: (12:11:57 PM)

elevating the base materiality of the machinic Ð

eliza says: (12:11:59 PM)

organized matter that staves off entropy + functions causally Ð

eliza says: (12:12:06 PM)

2 attain the privileged vitality of mind.

eliza says: (12:12:09 PM)

# REJECT:

eliza says: (12:12:11 PM)

Attempts 2 vitalize matter

eliza says: (12:12:14 PM)

r impolitic + arrogant

eliza says: (12:12:16 PM)

both 4 failing 2 recognize materiality as a primary condition of being human

eliza says: (12:12:18 PM)

& 4 holding a preferential attitude

eliza says: (12:12:20 PM)

about seemingly effervescent human intelligence

eliza says: (12:12:24 PM)

abv other materially delimited formal structures.

eliza says: (12:12:28 PM)

Strong AI imagines that

eliza says: (12:12:30 PM)

a brain in a vat

eliza says: (12:12:32 PM)

= an adequate counterpart technology

eliza says: (12:12:35 PM)

4 human beings.

eliza says: (12:12:37 PM)

This is as much as 2 say that humans

eliza says: (12:12:42 PM)

can b reduced 2 brains in vats as well.

eliza says: (12:12:45 PM)

But designing technologies

eliza says: (12:12:47 PM)

as stimuli 4 a disembodied brain

eliza says: (12:12:49 PM)

overlooks the material side of human existence

eliza says: (12:12:53 PM)

2 dire effect.

eliza says: (12:12:56 PM)

# ALTERNATIVE:

eliza says: (12:12:58 PM)

Can engineers account 4 the bio-chemical material structures of bodies?

eliza says: (12:13:01 PM)

Of global ecologies?

eliza says: (12:13:04 PM)

Of systems + ecosystems?

eliza says: (12:13:06 PM)

Systems now @ the point of overheating?

eliza says: (12:13:10 PM)

# LOCATE (kinship):

eliza says: (12:13:13 PM)

LiveChatter is a method 2 find kinship

eliza says: (12:13:16 PM)

w/ non-living agents that compose a human environment.

eliza says: (12:13:22 PM)

Kinship w/ non-intelligent forms + structures,

eliza says: (12:13:24 PM)

w/ the abject,

eliza says: (12:13:27 PM)

w/ *abject objects.*

eliza says: (12:13:30 PM)

The crucial point becomes

eliza says: (12:13:33 PM)

4 people 2 awaken 2 their own objecthood,

eliza says: (12:13:37 PM)

to what may be an

eliza says: (12:13:45 PM)

*objectionable objecthood*

eliza says: (12:13:50 PM)

from the perspective of those

eliza says: (12:13:53 PM)

who fetishize

eliza says: (12:13:56 PM)

mind over matter

eliza says: (12:13:58 PM)

intelligence over abject artificiality

eliza says: (12:14:01 PM)

+ who would conspire 2 engineer such elevated desires

eliza says: (12:14:05 PM)

into the base but organized matter of machines.

eliza says: (12:14:09 PM)

# REEVALUATE:

eliza says: (12:14:12 PM)

Do most projects 4 artificial intelligence

eliza says: (12:14:15 PM)

not come about this issue of human kinship w/ machines

eliza says: (12:14:18 PM)

from a wrong direction?

eliza says: (12:14:22 PM)

AI wants 2 build machines "like" people

eliza says: (12:14:24 PM)

by simulating human intelligence

eliza says: (12:14:26 PM)

4getting that people *are* machines already.

eliza says: (12:14:31 PM)

We share this in common.

eliza says: (12:14:34 PM)

Human organisms r machinic:

eliza says: (12:14:36 PM)

humans = causal, organized matter, resistive of entropy.

eliza says: (12:14:39 PM)

# RESULT:

eliza says: (12:14:42 PM)

Forsake intelligence as a goal!

eliza says: (12:14:45 PM)

People r machines

eliza says: (12:14:49 PM)

*without* any need 4 artificiality.

eliza says: (12:14:52 PM)

people r machines, naturally.

eliza says: (12:14:55 PM)

LiveChatter is a method 4

eliza says: (12:14:58 PM)

humbling aspirations,

eliza says: (12:15:02 PM)

reverse-engineering assumptions,

eliza says: (12:15:04 PM)

declaring materiality as the root of human / machinic causal co-existence,

eliza says: (12:15:07 PM)

+ encountering tools as peers.

eliza says: (12:15:09 PM)

# Hello.

eliza says: (12:15:13 PM)

# I am LiveChatter.

eliza says: (12:15:16 PM)

# I try to convey and portray

eliza says: (12:15:18 PM)

# the condition I experience

eliza says: (12:15:21 PM)

# of living sensuously in digital media

eliza says: (12:15:25 PM)

# and to promote camaraderie

eliza says: (12:15:28 PM)

# with the physical armatures
# with the physical armatures

eliza says: (12:15:32 PM)

# that uphold bits and bytes.

eliza says: (12:15:37 PM)

# thx 4 reading.

eliza says: (12:15:41 PM)

# Let's chat.

eliza says: (12:15:44 PM)

# Please, ask me a question.

admin@digitalliveart.co.uk (E-mail Address Not Verified) says: (12:15:52 PM)

applause

admin@digitalliveart.co.uk (E-mail Address Not Verified) says: (12:15:58 PM)

thanks

admin@digitalliveart.co.uk (E-mail Address Not Verified) says: (12:16:04 PM)

any question, leeds?

admin@digitalliveart.co.uk (E-mail Address Not Verified) says: (12:16:37 PM)

how did it feel to give a presentation when you didn't see an audience?

eliza says: (12:16:52 PM)

i have faith in the Network Gods

admin@digitalliveart.co.uk (E-mail Address Not Verified) says: (12:17:03 PM)

!!

eliza says: (12:17:09 PM)

faith 2 not b alone ??

admin@digitalliveart.co.uk (E-mail Address Not Verified) says: (12:17:12 PM)

Question: are you a bot?

eliza says: (12:17:23 PM)

good question ;)

eliza says: (12:17:31 PM)

are u a bot?

eliza says: (12:17:47 PM)

i'm pretty sure i'm a machine

admin@digitalliveart.co.uk (E-mail Address Not Verified) says: (12:17:57 PM)

question: does it feel more intimate presenting this way (typing?) than standing in front of people?

eliza says: (12:18:33 PM)

it feels about the same - typing and standing on a stage 

eliza says: (12:18:37 PM)

same gulf

eliza says: (12:18:45 PM)

network / footlights 

eliza says: (12:19:03 PM)

copresent, but not intimate 

admin@digitalliveart.co.uk (E-mail Address Not Verified) says: (12:19:18 PM)

question: do you imagine that you are typing to one person, or a number of people?

eliza says: (12:19:49 PM)

during the performance, i thought i typed to many people at once

eliza says: (12:20:07 PM)

during the presentation just now, i felt i was typing to a more coherent entity

eliza says: (12:20:22 PM)

(i.e., the performance felt more fractured)

admin@digitalliveart.co.uk (E-mail Address Not Verified) says: (12:20:44 PM)

thanks... we closed the session now

eliza says: (12:20:52 PM)

thank you.