I taught a computer to lie...

In the good old days, before Personal Computers (to, me at least) we had small computers called Micro-computers. The were the little ones below the mini ones like Honeywell level 6 and PDP 11's. As well we had a number of kit units that were becoming accepted. Not a PC to be found.

The University of British Columbia Psychology Department wanted badly to run some experiments to these computers. The one I personally built did not really lie, it just fibbed a bit. Basically played a game (developed I believe in the University of Waterloo, Ontario). Participants were shown a series of "stimulus" ( slides, etc) and asked a multiple choice question. No right or wrong answer was given, just the results that all off the other participants gave. You were given your own choice as to if you were wrong or right.

It was all done with a number of computer controlled terminals. Your answer was flashed back to you in the display. When the rest had voted, all of the choices were displayed. You decided if you were right or wrong. Fine and dandy, what was the purpose of a quiz with no right and wrong answer. Manipulation of the players was the whole purpose! You see, the computer was programmed to return false answers to selected individuals. The stimulus was so clever that there probably never was a right or wrong choice. The purpose was to see if folk could be made to change thier concept of the stimulus. In other words, to follow the herd. Person conducting the test had already evaluated the participants based partly on how they could or could not be manipulated. A weak willed person could be convinced very early in the game to forego thier own thoughts and give in to the thinking of the herd. The computer kept track of time to make decisions of all folk. They only had to see how long it took to manipulate an individual.

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