POPLOG POP-11 ELIZA
RUNNING ON A LINUX WEB SERVER IN BIRMINGHAM UK
A demonstration of a simple Eliza 'chatbot' written in Pop-11
(Very loosely modelled on J.Weizenbaum's Eliza (1966) inspired
in part by the style of a non-directive (Rogerian) psychotherapist.)
The text input panel is below the introduction.

Is Eliza the ghost in the machine?

ELIZA HERE! ---

Every intelligent ghost
must contain a machine:
an information-processing machine.

--- Picture of a ghost

INTRODUCTION

This program was originally a demonstration for students studying AI-programming, using
the Pop-11 programming language (which is part of The Free Poplog system, developed to
support AI teaching and research (among other things).

The program very crudely simulates a non-directive psychotherapist (though not always a
helpful one!).

It will appear to engage you in conversation about your problems. However, it doesn't really
understand, as you will soon discover.

It uses 'pattern matching' to attempt to select a relevant response, and, if that fails, will
produce one of its many pre-stored responses (some of which are saved versions of comments
typed by previous users).

The main aim is merely to keep you talking -- or rather typing!

You can type things into the box to the left of the 'Submit Query' button (below), then if you press
the RETURN key or click on the button Eliza will read what you have written, print your comment
and her (its!) answer, above the input panel, and wait for your next input.

You will generally get more interesting comments from Eliza if you make assertions, instead of
asking questions.

NB: "Compound" sentences made of two or more sentences joined together, using 'and', 'or',
'but', 'because', or merely commas, are likely to confuse this Eliza.
[Click on the input box or press the 'TAB' key before typing.]


GOOD DAY -- WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?
Please enter your sentence, or NEW (upper case) to start again.

Can you guess the rules Eliza uses to answer your questions?
This is question no:36289 (since 25 Sep 2002)

For an introductory tutorial on implementing Eliza in Pop11 see this plain text file.
A more advanced Pop11 tutorial related to this one is here.

For more on Pop-11 see The pop-11 primer

The Pop-11 source code for a version of Eliza very similar to the one demonstrated is here.

This is all part of the Open Source Free Poplog web site.

For more on the original Eliza see http://i5.nyu.edu/~mm64/x52.9265/january1966.html

For some recent interactions with Eliza click here.

Maintained by Aaron Sloman
Please email problems to A.Sloman @ cs.bham.ac.uk
With thanks for much help to Mark Roberts for tutorials on PHP.
Installed: 25 Sep 2002

1 Dec 2010: Re-arranged the heading.
25 Jun 2009: Some minor tidying up.
1 Jan 2008: Added more strings prepared from user responses: thanks to Websafe.
Also improved explanation: Eliza does not really attempt to simulate any sort of psychotherapist. It is just a toy demonstration.
24 May 2007: Added 'guest_quote' rule from Websafe to pop-11 eliza code.
Also solved problem of losing characters in output from pop-11 by using 'passthru' and 'ob_get_contents' instead of 'system',
as advised in http://uk3.php.net/manual/en/function.passthru.php
23 May 2007: Various changes made over the last month based partly on analysis of the output logs.
Still not clear why long lines of output from Eliza lose some of their leading characters.
Input panel with truncated to 72 characters (though more can still be typed).
A new picture at the top was provided by Websafe. (Removed 11 Jun 2007).
13 Apr 2007: Added a link to recent interactions
12 Apr 2007: Added logging mechanism. Must remember to check the logs.
10 Apr 2007: Testing by the developer of Websafe Studio revealed need to remove period at end of sentence.
15 Sep 2006: Added Eliza tutorial. Made output scroll to show previous interaction
9 Sep 2006: Fixed broken counter by moving to writeable file system
24 Aug 2006: Further problems due to change of server. Moved poplog system to where it could be accessed.
4 Feb 2006: Fixed problems after change to new server, and upgraded
19 Feb 2004: Fixed declaration of "session" Eliza