Game designer Jordan Mechner decided to pair up Siri with Eliza, a BASIC simulation program created in 1966 as a form of psychotherapy. When he put the two together, a very interesting and long--but slightly disjointed--conversation ensued.
Past the typical greeting, which both programs carry off well, Eliza is clearly the better conversationalist. Unlike Siri, Eliza is able to have a conversation without trying to link it to a command, such as finding a business. Siri on the other hand, although responsive, occasionally completely misunderstands, tries to find a business, or make a phone call. The dialogue ends in Siri beginning to phone a random person in Jordan's address book. Don't worry, Siri; Eliza is 45 years your senior, after all.
You can check out the full transcript of the coversation between the pair on Jordan's website.
As you can see, quite a strange match. As previously mentioned, Siri is still in beta, so has a way to go before converstaions with the software as a human or robot are able to flow as well as Eliza or even with another human. Personally, it would be cool to see a successful conversation between Siri on two different iPhones.
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This story, "Siri Stops to Chat With Eliza, Comedy Ensues" was originally published by PCWorld.