Once this is done by a writer, and of course it is inadvertent rather than deliberate distortion, a host of implications follow in the minds of many if not most readers, such as these: computers — at least some of them — understand water and coffee and so on; computers understand the physical world; computers make analogies; computers reason abstractly; computers make scientific discoveries; computers are insightful cohabiters of the world with us.
This type of illusion is generally known as the “Eliza effect”, which could be defined as the susceptibility of people to read far more understanding than is warranted into strings of symbols — especially words — strung together by computers.
— Hofstadter, Douglas R. Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies. Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. London: Allen Lane, 1995.
