The Human and the Chatterbot

Abstract

Around the recent turn of the millennium, one of the most promising discourses in performance studies seemed to be about the performative dimension of the chatterbot-what might also be termed its transdimensional potential. A chatterbot is a computer program which simulates human response by words typed and viewed on a computer screen and exhibits symptoms of human cognition. The stimulating chance to contemplate ‘embodied’ vs. ‘disembodied’ performance in the light of new media and to question performance as a solely human activity has been rather neglected, however, as we unquestioningly embrace entertaining internet applications. The paper aims to critically analyse the performativity of chatterbot in relation to key theories of performance theory and to introduce the reader to the transdimensional performance potential of the human-chatterbot conversation by exploring strategies such as bringing chatterbot-generated content on the stage.

Notes

1 There are cases of chatterbots designed to utter the text aloud. For an example beyond the chat box facility, see Boibot (2016). However, the focus of this article will be on text-based chatterbots designed to interact with users via written text.

2 However, a chatterbot may converse either with humans or with other chatterbots. The chatterbot Eliza, for example, was made to embed two heterogeneous sources – one human and one machine – whereas the combination of Weizenbaum’s Doctor program and his student Colby’s program is an example of double homogeneous mechanical sources (Brown 2008: 184–6).

3 Echoing Eric Bentley’s minimal definition of theatre (1964: 150). For an introduction to a dramatic approach to human– computer activity, see Laurel (1993).

4 Turing himself was actually fond of theatre, especially that of Shaw. See The Alan Turing Internet Scrapbook The Turing Test, 1950.

5 In dramatic writing, for example, there are cases of soliloquies and various dramatic criteria, such as role and audience that appear to co-function in ways not evident in chatterbot conversation.

6 Even if the body is not considered a medium, the phonetic alphabet and clothing, common in dramatic expression diachronically, clearly are media (McLuhan 2001: 38–9, 44).

7 For example, in bot ecology, the hardware of the computer may be considered the chatterbot body and the software the chatterbot mind. And, yes, we all know hardware and software when put on the shelf becomes useless and/or obsolete and metaphorically it ‘dies’.

8 For an introduction to frame analysis, see Goffman (1976).