Abstract
The paper analyzes if it is possible to grow an I–Thou relation in the sense of Martin Buber with an artificial, conversational agent developed with Natural Language Processing techniques. The requirements for such an agent, the possible approaches for the implementation, and their limitations are discussed. The relation of the achievement of this goal with the Turing test is emphasized. Novel perspectives on the I–Thou and I–It relations are introduced according to the sociocultural paradigm and Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogism, polyphony inter-animation, and carnavalesque. The polyphonic model, the associated analysis method, and the support tools are introduced. Some ideas on how the polyphonic model may be used for the implementation of a computer application able to analyze some features of the existence of an I–Thou relation are included.
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.References
Bakhtin MM (1981) The dialogic imagination: four essays. University of Texas Press, Austin
Bakhtin MM (1984a) Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics, theory and history of literature series, vol. 8 (edited and translated by C. Emerson). University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
Bakhtin MM (1984b) Rabelais and his world. Indiana University Press, Bloomington
Bakhtin MM (1986) Speech genres and other late essays. University of Texas Press, Austin
Buber M (1970) I and Thou, translation Walter Kaufmann. Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York
Clark K, Holquist JM (1984) Mikhail Bakhtin. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Crowell S (2015) “Existentialism”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition). In: Zalta EN (ed). http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/existentialism/
Dascalu M, Dessus P, Trausan-Matu S, Bianco M, Nardy A (2013) ReaderBench, an environment for analyzing text complexity and reading strategies. In: Lane HC, Yacef K, Mostow J, Pavlik P (eds) 16th Int. Conf. on artificial intelligence in education (AIED 2013). Springer, Memphis, pp 379–388
Fromm E (1955) The sane society. Fawcett Premier, Greenwich, Connecticut
Hovy EH (2015) What are sentiment, affect, and emotion? Applying the methodology of Michael Zock to sentiment analysis. In: Gala N et al (eds) Language production, cognition, and the lexicon, text, speech and language technology 48. Springer International Publishing, Switzerland
Jurafsky D, Martin JH (2009) Speech and language processing. In: An introduction to natural language processing, computational linguistics, and speech recognition, 2nd edn. Pearson Prentice Hall, London
Koffka K (1935) Principles of gestalt psychology. Harcourt, Brace, New York
Lakoff G, Johnson M (1980) Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Levinas E (1979) Totality and infinity. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh
Marcus S (1997) Empatie si personalitate, Ed. Atos, Bucharest (in Romanian)
Mihailovic A (1997) Corporeal words: Mihail Bakhtin’s theology of discourse. Northwestern University Press, Chicago
Pang B, Lee L (2008) Opinion mining and sentiment analysis. Found Trends Inf Retriev 2:1–135
Schubert LK (2015) What kinds of knowledge are needed for genuine understanding? IJCAI 2015 workshop on cognitive knowledge acquisition and applications (Cognitum 2015), Buenos Aires
Stahl G (2006) Group cognition. Computer support for building collaborative knowledge. MIT Press, Cambridge
Takahashi H, Horii T, Endo N, Morita T, Yokoyama H, Asada M (2014) How does emphatic emotion emerge via human–robot rhythmic interaction?, HAI 2014, ACM, Tsukuba, Japan
Tannen D (1989) Talking voices: repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge University Press, New York
Thompson E (2007) Mind in life: biology, phenomenology, and the sciences of mind. Harvard University Press, London
Trausan-Matu S (2010a) Computer support for creativity in small groups using chats. Ann Acad Rom Sci Ser Sci Technol Inf 3(2):81–90
Trausan-Matu S (2010b) The polyphonic model of hybrid and collaborative learning. In: Wang FL, Fong J, Kwan RC (eds.) Handbook of research on hybrid learning models: advanced tools, technologies, and applications. Information Science Publishing, Hershey, pp 466–486
Trausan-Matu S (2012) Repetition as artifact generation in polyphonic CSCL chats. In: Third international conference on emerging intelligent data and web technologies. IEEE, Bucharest, pp 194–198
Trausan-Matu S (2013) Collaborative and differential utterances, pivotal moments, and polyphony. In: Suthers D, Lund K, Rosé CP, Law N (eds) Productive multivocality. Springer, New York, pp 123–139
Trausan-Matu S, Murarus RI (2015) Evaluarea invatarii colaborative pe chat, pe baza analizei repetitiilor si altruismului, Revista Romana de Interactiune Om-Calculator, 8(3), pp 223–236
Trausan-Matu S, Rebedea T (2010) A polyphonic model and system for inter-animation analysis in chat conversations with multiple participants. In: Gelbukh AF (ed) 11th international conference on computational linguistics and intelligent text processing (CICLing 2010). Springer, Iasi, pp 354–363
Trausan-Matu S, Rebedea T, Dragan A, Alexandru C (2007a) Visualisation of learners’ contributions in chat conversations. In: Fong J, Wang FL (eds) Blended learning. Pearson/Prentice Hall, Singapour, pp 217–226
Trausan-Matu S, Stahl G, Sarmiento J (2007b) Supporting polyphonic collaborative learning. E-service J, vol. 6, nr. 1, Indiana University Press, pp 58–74
Trausan-Matu S, Dascalu M, Rebedea T (2014) PolyCAFe—automatic support for the polyphonic analysis of CSCL chats Int J Comput Support Collab Learn, Springer 9:127–156
Turing AM (1950) Computing machinery and intelligence Mind, 59, pp 433–460
Voloshinov V (1973) Marxism and the philosophy of language. Seminar Press, New York
Vygotsky L (1978) Mind in society. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Weizenbaum J (1966) ELIZA—a computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine. Commun ACM 9(1):36–45
Winograd T (1987) Thinking machines: can there be? Are we?, Report No. STAN-CS-87-1161, Stanford
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank to Gerry Stahl for his encouragement in my research toward the development of the polyphonic model and analysis method starting from Bakhtin’s ideas. I also want to thank to the anonymous reviewers for their useful recommendations.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Trausan-Matu, S. Is it possible to grow an I–Thou relation with an artificial agent? A dialogistic perspective. AI & Soc 34, 9–17 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-017-0696-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-017-0696-5