C H AT BO T S O F T H E

T E C H N O LO G I C A L G E N E S I S

In this Information Age, the extraordinary feats of Digitalization

have become commonplace. What once existed only in the minds
of dreamers and visionaries has materialized into a permanent
fixture of our modern world; a societal infrastructure, built of
smartphones, artificial intelligence and self-driving cars.

Appreciation of the miracles of technology lies in the bizarre

novelty of the work done near the beginning of the digital
revolution. Those mavericks who took the first steps into the
cybernetic unknown show us not only the power- and privilege- we
have in computer accessibility, but remind us of the dreams, spun
in the heads of geeks and scientists and storytellers, humanity
once had for the humble computer.

THE ARTIFICIAL INSANITY OF A.I. PIONEERS

L EFT : THE S TA RT- UP SC RE EN OF EL IZ A , THE W O RL D S FI RST A.I .
PS YC HI ATRI ST

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PARRY, a computer program and primitive A.I. bot written in
1972, was created to simulate the mind of the paranoid
schizophrenic. PARRYs conception followed the lead of his better-
known predecessor, ELIZA, whose conversations modeling
Rogerian psychotherapy got her the nickname DOCTOR.

PARRY found fame in his conversations with ELIZA during the 1972
ICCC (pictured below). Both bots maintained similarly tongue-in-
cheek personalities, and mirror the light-hearted sarcasm of
todays Siri (or GLADoS).

PARRY AND THE DOCTOR, HIS ARTIFICALLY INTELLIGENT SHRINK, IN 1973.

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 POETRY FROM CYBERSPACE

RACTER- short for raconteur- is a primitive artificial intelligence

chatterbot, created and released in the early 1980s. RACTER was
introduced to the world in the form of a book of prose. The
Policemans Beard is Half Constructed was, according to RACTERs
creators, a book of poems generated by the A.I. bot alone.

Because the only proof of RACTERs existence was this book, it was
met with criticism: for a computer to generate comprehensible
prose would require too sophisticated a program than existed at
that time.

Though a commercialized version of RACTER was released for

Apple and DOS in 1984, it was incapable of producing the poetry
seen in the book.

ABOVE: MINDSCAPES PROGRAM, RACTER, 1984 MACINTOSH

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 LEFT: A PAGE FROM THE BOOK THE
POLICEMANS BEARD IS HALF
CONSTRUCTED, WITH TEXT THAT
READS REFLECTIONS ARE IMAGES OF
TARNISHED ASPIRATIONS.

LEFT: TEXT READS:

MORE THAN IRON,
MORE THAN LEAD, MORE
THAN GOLD, I NEED
ELECTRICITY- I NEED IT
MORE THAN LAMB OR
PORK OR LETTUCE OR
CUCUMBER. I NEED IT
FOR MY DREAMS.