I just woke up in the middle of the night and was writing down a dream and I was trying to write fast enough to get the dream down before I fogot all the important parts and then I was thinking how much easier it would be to just talk it out, but you know there is no Ms. JesusHChrist and all, and the apt has thin walls and I would just feel crazier than regular if I started talking to myself, and the freaking tape recorder probably would always be out of batteries or be broken and all, so I was thinking that the essential qualities of people - the "good" things you get out of them - are really the little verbal encouragements, or really emotional encouragements, things like, "unhunh, yeah, I know what you mean, and mmmm", because, you know, I am emotionally needy and ok totally sick, but bear with me here, can't disabilities be turned into opportunities? so couldn't you just record a person's responses in a series of conversations you had with them and then have an AI program decide based on the musical tone of your voice, pauses and voice recognition, etc, when to interject agreements or disagreements? Like the system wouldn't have to really understand what you were saying, just give encouragement, like more emotional encouragement, like non verbal. Is that sick? That way I would never have to get mentally healthy enough to attract a partner. But I guess the bottleneck would be response time with running the voice recognition algorithm and all, and getting a system that didn't start running spyware checks in the middle of encouraging you, and I guess the problem is more easily solved from the perspective of me going out and buying batteries regularly, or maybe actually going to a psychiatrist so I can get healthy enough to find someone to listen to me. But in the meantime can I at least get an, "Umhmm?", or is that like asking someone to throw gasoline on a fire to put it out? Why is life's response to displays of loneliness that people avoid you?-- JesusHChrist, Apr 30 2008 talk at eliza http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza/eliza.html [jaksplat, Apr 30 2008] Wow, first don't worry about insanity, it's like stupidity everybody has some. The idea is to hide it as best you can and be happy.
Next, I like this, a tape recorder that listens for pauses and inserts common acknoledgement (sp?) words. Seems doable and might get me to use a digital recorder. Normally, I just feel stupid.-- MisterQED, Apr 30 2008 "there is no Ms. JesusHChrist " - really? I am so surprised!
P.S. get a dog.-- DrCurry, Apr 30 2008 You want someone to talk to... don't go to a psychiatrist. *Become* a psychiatrist.
Trust me, you'll do fine. It's not possible to be too crazy to be a shrink.
As to the idea - put on a mic with a push-to-talk switch on it. Then you can pretend you're talking to someone on a walkie-talkie or CB or some such, and the timing for responses becomes totally trivial.-- lurch, Apr 30 2008 Just remember, nothing worthwhile was ever accomplished by a well-adjusted person.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 30 2008 Well, apart from having a well-rounded life and a happy family, that is.-- DrCurry, Apr 30 2008 The defense rests.-- MaxwellBuchanan, May 01 2008 Eliza is a total git.-- zeno, May 01 2008 random, halfbakery