elite adj.
Clueful. Plugged-in. One of the cognoscenti. Also used as a
general positive adjective. This term is not actually native
hacker slang; it is used primarily by crackers and warez d00dz, for which reason hackers
use it only with heavy irony. The term used to refer to the folks
allowed in to the "hidden" or "privileged" sections of BBSes in
the early 1980s (which, typically, contained pirated software).
Frequently, early boards would only let you post, or even see, a
certain subset of the sections (or `boards') on a BBS. Those who
got to the frequently legendary `triple super secret' boards were
elite. Misspellings of this term in warez d00dz style abound; the
forms `eleet', and `31337' (among others) have been sighted.
A true hacker would be more likely to use `wizardly'. Oppose
lamer.
Node:ELIZA effect, Next:elvish, Previous:elite, Up:= E
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ELIZA effect /*-li:'z* *-fekt'/ n.
[AI community] The tendency of humans to attach associations
to terms from prior experience. For example, there is nothing
magic about the symbol + that makes it well-suited
to indicate addition; it's just that people associate it with
addition. Using + or `plus' to mean addition in a
computer language is taking advantage of the ELIZA effect.
This term comes from the famous ELIZA program by Joseph
Weizenbaum, which simulated a Rogerian psychotherapist by
rephrasing many of the patient's statements as questions and
posing them to the patient. It worked by simple pattern
recognition and substitution of key words into canned phrases. It
was so convincing, however, that there are many anecdotes about
people becoming very emotionally caught up in dealing with ELIZA.
All this was due to people's tendency to attach to words meanings
which the computer never put there. The ELIZA effect is a Good Thing when writing a
programming language, but it can blind you to serious
shortcomings when analyzing an Artificial Intelligence system.
Compare ad-hockery; see also
AI-complete. Sources for a
clone of the original Eliza are available at
ftp://ftp.cc.utexas.edu/pub/AI_ATTIC/Programs/Classic/Eliza/Eliza.c.