Eliza and the Automata

The original ELIZA was a puzzling success. There is a case for seeing EUZA in a new light, CIS the first, and highly successful, move towards treating certain kinds of activity as automatic and reactive. There is a strong analogy between the way in which ELI24 reacts and the way in which robotic automata react. The major thesis of this paper is that there is at least one important and systematic direction in which this way of seeing EDZA can be developed. The development concerns precisely the area in which ELIZA was most successful, dialogue. A multi-automata approach to dialogue is explored in terms of the most recent work in dialogue logic and dialogue game theory. The paper contrasts the work of the linguistic discourse analysts and the dialogicians. A typical dialogue logic is presented with extensions for task oriented dialogue with emphasis on joint activity.