May 27, 2012
Contextual Understanding by Computers by Joseph Weizenbaum 1967
Discussing machine understanding, conversational context and belief structures. Also, a 'new' ELIZA capable of inferential data acquisition with a script to reveal, rather than conceal, lack of understanding and misunderstanding.
It is too much to insist that a machine understands a sentence (or a symphony or a poem) only if that sentence invokes the same imagery in the machine as was present in the speaker of the sentence at the time he uttered it. For by that criterion no human understands any other human. Yet, we agree that humans do understand one another to within acceptable tolerances