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ArtificialIntelligence for NeXTStep 3.0. Introduction O.K. O.K. It is all just a big joke. ArtificialIntelligence was inspired by a similar program for the Macintosh and by Hofstadter's "Godel, Escher, Bach" where a similar program is described. Basic Idea ArtificialIntelligence communicates with another copy of ArtificialIntelligence over Internet. When a victim who thinks that ArtificialIntelligence is a real AI program types something, the person on the other NeXT with ArtificialIntelligence running sees the sentence and can also type something which the victim will see on his NeXT. ArtificialIntelligence works using Distributed Objects. Therefore it will only work on NS 3.0 or higher. Prerequisits 2 NeXTs running NeXTStep 3.0 on the same subnet (same building or even better: same floor). Procedure The first copy should be run by a friend of yours on the first NeXT. The friend should know what is going on so that (s)he can make the conversation more interesting. Then you should tell another friend of yours that you have a nice AI program to demostrate. If necessary send the program over by NeXTMail to the second NeXT, but make sure not to include this README file. Then run the program or have your friend on the second NeXT run it for you. At about the same time (better before than later) your friend on the first NeXT should run ArtificialIntelligence. ArtificialIntelligence on the first NeXT will search for servers on the local subnet and if it does not find one then it will become a server. This operation takes several seconds and is disguised by "Initializing Neural Networks... " message. Then the server waits for clients. This is disguised by "Precaluclating sigmoid(alpha^2) error correction coefficients. This may take a while." The deceit is not really needed because your friend on the first NeXT will be aware of the joke anyway. However in case ArtificialIntelligence is launched on the second NeXT before the first NeXT, it will become a server, yet the user will not see anything different except, "Precaluclating sigmoid(alpha^2) error correction coefficients. This may take a while." If you do not see this message than this means that ArtificialIntelligence has found a server on the network. This should also be indicated by "Ready!" message. This means that both copies of ArtificialIntelligence have found each other and the user can start typing. The user may type "Hello computer" and press return. This message will be displayed as "Human: Hello computer" on the second NeXT (the victims's NeXT) and will be displayed as "ArtificialIntelligence: Hello computer" on the second NeXT. In other words all incoming messages are prefixed with "ArtificialIntelligence: " and all messages that the user types are prefixed with "Human: ". The person on the second NeXT should see "ArtificialIntelligence: Hello computer" and can respond with "Hello Peter. How are you today?" Then the victim will see "ArtificialIntelligence: Hello Peter. How are you today?" on his NeXT. Guidelines for the friend on the first NeXT. 1) Do not make spelling errors. Check your response before you press return. 2) Take your time. If you respond too fast there may be a suspicion. 3) Captialize some words. Make some other obviously computer-made errors such as for example: The victim tells you that his name is not Peter but, say, "Jack Goldman". You can then respond with "Hello GOLDMAN, J. Nice to meet you." Or you can try: "You were not found in the NRIIU server. The closes match is GILLMAN J, 7N773, code B. (null pointer)" 4) Demonstrate your memory. This is what all traditional AI programs can't do. For example, "You contradict yourself. Two minutes ago you said: blah, blah, and now you say blah blah blah" 5) Try to get several people to be near the victim's NeXT. This works especially well with students in Computer Science Department. Afterword I would love to hear from you if the joke went successfully. Please e-mail me also for any suggestions, comments, bug reports. My e-mail address is dmitri@StarConn.com - Dmitri Linde
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.