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Description
How do we talk to computers? Can they understand us if we do and will they reply? These are the type of issues raised in this first programme about the language component of artificial intelligence.... The audience at Essex University, where the programme was recorded, try talking to a simple computer program 'Eliza' which understands some basic rules of conversation. However, problems such as word ambiguity can fool 'Eliza' and so we then look at another program 'SHRDLU' which is conversationally more limited but does try to get to grips with problems of syntax.
How do we talk to computers? Can they understand us if we do and will they reply? These are the type of issues raised in this first programme about the language component of artificial intelligence.... The audience at Essex University, where the programme was recorded, try talking to a simple computer program 'Eliza' which understands some basic rules of conversation. However, problems such as word ambiguity can fool 'Eliza' and so we then look at another program 'SHRDLU' which is conversationally more limited but does try to get to grips with problems of syntax.
| Module code and title: | D303, Cognitive psychology |
|---|---|
| Item code: | D303; 15 |
| First transmission date: | 25-09-1978 |
| Published: | 1978 |
| Rights Statement: | |
| Restrictions on use: | |
| Duration: | 00:24:30 |
| + Show more... | |
| Producer: | Roger Penfound |
| Contributor: | Yorick Wilks |
| Publisher: | BBC Open University |
| Keyword(s): | Artificial Intelligence; Computers; Perception; Psychology |
| Footage description: | Yorick Wilks gives a lecture before an invited audience at the University of Essex. He gives a demonstration of Eliza, a talking programme for a computer, which operates by identifying key words in a sentence and responding to them. Yorick then explains Eliza's limitations, the key point being that the programme does not take account of general grammatical rules. He now looks at some ambiguities in language which humans solve intuitively but which present major problems for computers. To better understand this type of problem he examines and parses an example of ambiguity, the sentence, "Put the green pyramid on the block in the box". The parsing of the sentence reveals two possible syntactic structures, which relate to different situations in the real world. He now looks at a programme, SHRDLU, which can understand sentences about block worlds. He works through a flow chart included in the programme, which analyses noun phrases, in order to show how SHRDLU would identify the phrase "the green pyramid". In order to do this correctly the programme must utilise truth conditions, held in the database. Yorick now describes some of SHRDLU's advantages when operating within its own limited block world. He compares it to Eliza and leaves us with the question, "do humans cope with language problems in this analytical fashion?". |
| Master spool number: | VTC/6HT/72653 |
| Production number: | 00525_2414 |
| Videofinder number: | 214 |
| Available to public: | no |
