Elbert: Controversial researcher has new tools

Des Moines Register ^ | 04/16/2003 | David Elbert

[PeterPrinciple]

Twenty-five years ago, Charles Cleveland, then a Drake University professor, captured attention with a computer program designed to identify people's attitudes based on what they said or wrote.

A 1978 Des Moines Register story about the project stirred up a hornets' nest. Privacy advocates worried that government agencies would use the program to develop psychological profiles that would lead to the dark futures portrayed by novelists George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.

[PeterPrinciple]

"a computer program designed to identify people's attitudes based on what they said or wrote."

We should ask him to analyze Free Republic.

[Cicero]

"What do you mean by that?"

Hmm. I'm beginning to feel like Woody Allen.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

So, do we win a prize?

It was like talking to an untalented psychologist used to dealing with children or the retarded.

[LeftIsSinister]

It reminded me very much of the AI program "Eliza," which is now almost 40 years old (1966). Try an online version here.

[Question_Assumptions]

Bump for later.

[the gillman@blacklagoon.com]

Ha, that reminded me of a wierd kid I knew in school who was functionally an idiot but was unbeatable in checkers.

An idiot savant?

He answered every question or demand with a regurgitaion of what you had just said.