Dialogues in natural language with GURU, a psychologic inference engine

Abstract

The aim of this project was to explore the possibility of constructing a psychologic inference engine that might enhance introspective self‐awareness by delivering inferences about a user based on what he said in interactive dialogues about his closest opposite‐sex relation. To implement this aim, we developed a computer program (guru) with the capacity to simulate human conversation in colloquial natural language. The psychologic inferences offered represent the authors’ simulations of their commonsense psychology responses to expected user‐input expressions. The heuristics of the natural language processor and its relation to output responses are described in enough detail for the operations of the implementation to be understood. Evaluation of this new cognitive agent presents, we hope, puzzles for artificial intelligence and cognitive science.