Sunday Book-Thought 143

When we compare the limited powers of conversation of the systems described in this book with HAL’s sophisticated performance, we can see how much has yet to be accomplished in the computational modelling of conversational competence. One thing should be certain, however: when we consider some of what is involved in designing a system which can communicate in natural language and in a human-like way, we begin to appreciate the complexities of the processes we normally take for granted every time we take part in a conversation.
– Michael McTear, The Articulate Computer (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), p. 226.

Sunday Book-Thought 131

I wish my machine were alive. I would like to kill it.
– Jerome J. McGann, The Textual Condition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 92.