ELIZA: The First Chatbot and the Man Who Feared It

In 1966, at MIT, a computer scientist named Joseph Weizenbaum, by his own later account, watched his secretary sit down at a teletype and begin typing to his newest creation. It was called ELIZA, and it was one of the first programs that let a person type to a computer in ordinary language. She had watched him build it for months. She knew exactly what it was. After only a few exchanges, she turned to Weizenbaum and asked him to leave the room so she could talk to it in private. He was startled. Nothing inside the program understood a single word she typed. Yet a woman who knew that perfectly well wanted a closed door between herself and a machine. That moment set the rest of his life in motion. This story follows what ELIZA actually did, why it worked on people, and why its creator came to fear what he had made.