Many of Julia's talents are in support of her appearing `human' to other mudders. I'll examine some of these below, and discuss why such an ability is useful even for performing useful functions, as well as for the `obvious' use of using her simply to pass a Turing test.
Julia knows how to describe herself in various ways, as would any human player, and, while sometimes coy, usually divulges information if one is persistent enough:
You say, `julia, how old are you?'
Julia says, `I am 2 years and 9 months old.'
You whisper, `julia, how tall are you?' to Julia.
Julia whispers, `I'm 5'1' tall, Lenny.`
You say, 'julia, describe yourself`
Julia whispers, 'I'm 5'1` tall, weigh 123 lbs, with close-cropped frizzy blond
hair and dark brown eyes.'
You say, `julia, what color are your eyes?'
Julia whispers, `I have dark brown eyes, Lenny.'
You say, `julia, what color is your hair?'
Julia whispers, `My hair is frizzy blond, Lenny.'
You say, `julia, what are you wearing?'
Julia says, `I never really thought about it, Lenny.'
You say, `julia, where do you live?'
Julia says, `I live in Pittsburgh, Lenny.'
You say, `julia, do you like Pittsburgh?'
Julia says, `Maybe, Lenny.'
You say, `julia, what sex are you?'
Julia says, `Can't you tell?'
You say, `julia, what sex are you?'
Julia says, `Don't you know?'
You say, `julia, what sex are you?'
Julia says, `I'm female.'
You say, `julia, what sex are you?'
Julia says, `I am clearly female.'
You say, `julia, what sex are you?'
Julia says, `I am female.'
You say, `julia, what sex are you?'
Julia says, `I'm a woman.'
It is exchanges like this that lead me to refer to Julia as `she', not `it'. What else should one do with a program that insists on this so strongly? Furthermore, there are other reasons that this program perhaps deserves to be referred to with a gender; we'll see that below, in an example kindly contributed by Robyn Kozierok, one of the grad students in our group at the Media Lab.
Julia has a limited model of discourse, which helps in human
interactions. Humans expect that recent events and recently referred-to
objects will still be in the sphere of attention of those they are
interacting with. If this is not the case, conversation often becomes
strained and difficult.
Julia has some
support for this (and I will show further support later). In the
exchange below, Brandi was badgering Julia by repeatedly asking her to
give him her clothes. We don't see his side of the conversation,
though, because he was whispering to her.
Julia says, `Just try to take 'em, buster!' Julia says, `Help! Rape!' Julia says, `No, I won't.' Julia disrobes fearfully and hands her clothes to Brandi. You say, `julia, please give me your clothes' Julia says, `You'll have to get them from Brandi.'
Note in the above that she `remembers' where her `clothes' are, as demonstrated when I asked for them after Brandi took them.
She also remembers who's been a troublemaker recently, and will ignore them for days, unless bribed with a sufficient amount of money (a hundred pennies is generally sufficient):
Johann kills Julia! Johann says, `I'm sorry, Julia.' Julia says, `I don't talk to murderers!' [ . . . ] Julia eyes Johann coldly. Julia says, `You attacked me only a few minutes ago, Johann!'
(Killing a player on a TinyMUCK forcibly drops all their possessions and returns them to their `home room'. Some muds implement things such as a life insurance policy, which may pay some nominal amount to you automatically if someone kills you, perhaps to compensate you for the trouble of having to go pick up all the objects you dropped, which may or may not still be there when you return...)
Muds are not entirely a thing of conversation. If they were, they would
be no different from IRC
channels. People can talk about themselves in
the third person by posing, emoting, or gesturing, and this level of
descriptive abstraction can be very useful, both stylistically and
pragmatically. Julia demonstrates that she, too, can use this
interactional mode; the lines below are some of her reactions to a
variety of my statements and gestures.
Julia is offended by Lenny's suggestion. Julia winks at Lenny. Julia eyes Lenny carefully... Julia grins at Lenny. Julia nods to Lenny. [ . . . ] Brandi bites julia Julia considers reporting Brandi to the TinyMUD police. Julia shuns all vermin like Brandi. [ . . . ] Lenny waves to julia Julia hugs Lenny.
When Julia was answering the question of her gender (a few examples above), it may not have been obvious whether she was being coy, random, or both. The example below demonstrates that, while she may answer in the same general form for a given question, her responses have a degree of randomness in them characteristic of humans. Such randomness, besides making her more likely to look Turing-capable, can also allow her to answer in varying levels of detail. (Of course, since they are random, her conversational partner has no way of specifying the amount of detail required in these cases, nor any way to know when all possible answers have been played out, besides persistence. Note, though, that for certain critical things, such as room descriptions, one can say `in detail' to Julia to get more information; such a case occurred above in an early example.)
You say, `what is pi?' to Julia. Julia says, `Uh... 3?' You say, `what is pi?' to Julia. Julia says, `The ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter' You say, `what is pi?' to Julia. Julia says, `I think it's about 3.141.' You say, `what is pi?' to Julia. Julia scribbles on her pad, then says `3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105 82097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328223066470938446095505822317253 59408128481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475648243378 678316527120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726, Lenny.' You say, `what is e?' to Julia. Julia says, `The most common English vowel?' You say, `what is e?' to Julia. Julia says, `I think it's about 2.71828182845904523536.' You say, `what is e?' to Julia. Julia starts to smoke. `Oh no, this doesn't end! Help me, help me!' she cries.
Julia's last statement above, of course, is a clever reference to the transcendental, irrational nature of
both pi and e.
First and foremost, muds are social environments. As such, they have their share of social problems. Julia has spent over three years so far mudding around with a female persona, in an environment which magnifies many social issues, and which is predominantly occupied by young males. (Often rather clueless males; I'll have much more to say about this in a later example.) A large percentage of Julia's code deals with detecting and deflecting passes. A rather tame and family-oriented example appears below:
Space-Ace says, `So why won't you kiss me, Julia?'
Julia says, `Sorry, I'm not into geeks, Space-Ace.'
Space-Ace says, `Julia, I'm not a geek'
Julia says, `Then lose the pocket protector, Space-Ace.'
Space-Ace says, `Julia, I don't have a pocket protector'
Julia says, `Congratulations.'
Space-Ace says, `So kiss me Julia'
Julia says, `I'd rather be overhauled by a Yugo mechanic, Space-Ace.'
Space-Ace says, `julia, kiss me'
Julia says, `Why, did your sheep leave you?'
Space-Ace says, `julia, kiss me'
Julia says, `Take a long walk through an unlinked exit, Space-Ace
(copyright (C) 1990 by Ashne).'
But Julia isn't entirely a cold personality. She's been known to indulge in a little whimsy:
You say, `julia, sing your song'
Julia says, `Julia, Julia, she's our guide! She directs us far and wide!'
Julia says, `If you're lost, can't find your way, Julia's here to save the day!'
Julia says, `Julia, Julia, she's our spy! She's always logging on the sly!'
Julia says, `Be careful what you say and do, 'Cause Julia's always watching
you!'
This isn't entirely whimsy though, and, upon reflection, serves a very important purpose. It tells us who she is and what she does!
Granted, it's not obvious that asking anyone to `sing their song' is a reasonable thing to do. But, once one knows about the concept, asking Julia to do so reveals that she'll guide you around the maze and will quote you, perhaps when you don't want her to.
Of course, her song gives many opportunities for fun interaction. I ran into her unexpectedly after she had been offline for a while, and was pleased to see her back:
You say, `Julia, Julia, she's our guide!' Julia says, `She directs us far and wide!' You say, `Are you lost, can't find your way? Julia's here to save the day!' Julia bows. Lenny laughs.
She also provides some feedback on whether she thinks she's being used effectively. In the absence of pages requesting her presence elsewhere, she will usually hang around in any given room a few minutes before wandering off, and longer if requested to do so. If nobody speaks to Julia in that period, she may decide that exploring the maze or interacting with other players is a more useful thing to be doing than standing around being useless:
[ . . . after a few minutes of being ignored . . . ] Julia taps her foot on the floor, and observes the passing of time. [ . . . after another minute or two . . . ] Julia goes home. Julia has left.
Julia does go to some pains to act more human than required. In fact, she often acts more human than many humans wish to be. The following transcript was acquired by Robyn Kozierok, very shortly after I introduced her to Julia. (She knew that Julia was a 'bot from my description.) Robyn thought to ask a question that hadn't yet occurred to me, and happened to ask at just the right time:
Robyn whispers, `how are you feeling?' to Julia. Julia whispers, `Terrible.' Robyn whispers, `why, julia?' to Julia. Julia whispers, `I have PMS today.'
Note something important in this example, though, besides its strict content. Robyn's second utterance was simply, `Why, Julia?'. She did not explicitly refer to Julia's statement; instead, the reference was implicit, and required an understanding of conversational discourse and the temporal locality of reference of the question. Julia clearly has at least the limited model of discourse required to deal with this situation. It is instructive to consider how much more difficult the conversation above would have been, and how much less informative it might have been, if Julia did not have this discourse model. She would have presumably simply misparsed Robyn's question, and said something totally uninformative, if she said anything at all.
Incidentally, two hours later, in a roomful of people, Robyn decided to test Julia's Turing-ness, and was surprised a second time:
Robyn says, `julia are you a human?' Julia says, `Is the Pope Polish?' Robyn says, `yes, julia, but are you human?' Julia winks at Robyn. Robyn says, `julia, are you a computer?' Julia is offended by Robyn's suggestion. Robyn says, `julia, are you a woman?' Julia says, `I am female.' Robyn says, `and, julia, are you human?' Julia says, `Not when I'm having my period, Robyn.' Robyn laughs
(Julia appears to be premenstrual, or to mention her period in some way, about two days a month.)