Pass the Paddles: Man's Best Friend

Computers were still huge assemblies of vacuum tubes and transistors when the German-Jewish émigré and computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum published a paper called ?ELIZA — A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication between Man and Machine,? in Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery 9. It was 1966, and Weizenbaum programmed ELIZA to simulate the ?active listening? psychoanalytical strategies of the Rogerian therapy in vogue at the time.

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When so many other games these days incorporate decision-tree ethics — good or bad choices constantly influence your digital avatar‘smoral and physical evolution — Nintendogs seems to be missing the finishing touches. Ding Dong will never fully suspend disbelief as a permanent puppy, and a cheerful one at that. Nintendo personnel have recently hinted that dogs in the next iteration would have a broader range of behavioral development and would age. They should go one further and let them die. Consciousness has no stakes if it‘snever-ending. For machines to become man‘sbest friends, there must also be the prospect of losing those friends. —Joshua Bearman —Pass the Paddles: Man’s Best Friend (LA Weekly)