The Eliza Effect (Preface 4)

In this section of the book, Hofstadter discussed how computers have a sort of "empty" understanding of the world we love in. For example, a computer may be able to make an 'analogy' of water flowing in a pipe and heat flow through a metal bar. Even though the computer may be able to produce a great analogy between water flow and heat flow it still does not have a deep unstanding of water and heat. A computer "has no representation anywhere of what it means to be liquid, or of what "greater than" means, or of what beakers and vials are, etc".

In the world of computer science there exists a thing known as the "Eliza Effect." The "Eliza Effect" is the term given to the illusion of a computer 'understanding' you, 'sympathizing' with you and showing you 'empathy'. In reality, computers have no conceptual understanding of what anything is really, in a way it only 'knows' 'empty' facts. An example of the "Eliza Effect' occuring in the real world would be someone actually thinking that an ATM was actually thanking them when the screen flashed "THANK YOU" after making a transaction. The "Eliza Effect" really interests me because it explains how computers can seem to interact with humans while appearing to display human emotions without actually expressing any emotions at all.