Editing ELIZA effect (section)

== History ==
The effect is named for [[ELIZA]], the 1966 [[chatbot]] developed by MIT computer scientist [[Joseph Weizenbaum]]. When executing Weizenbaum's ''DOCTOR'' [[scripting language|script]], ELIZA simulated a [[Rogerian psychotherapy|Rogerian]] [[psychotherapist]], largely by rephrasing the "patient{{"'}}s replies as questions:<ref name="Güzeldere1">{{cite web |title=dialogues with colorful personalities of early ai |last=Güzeldere |first=Güven |author2=Franchi, Stefano |url=http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/dialogues.html |access-date=2007-07-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110425191843/http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/dialogues.html |archive-date=2011-04-25 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

: Human: Well, my boyfriend made me come here.
: ELIZA: Your boyfriend made you come here?
: Human: He says I'm depressed much of the time.
: ELIZA: I am sorry to hear you are depressed.
: Human: It's true. I'm unhappy.
: ELIZA: Do you think coming here will help you not to be unhappy?

Though designed strictly as a mechanism to support "natural language conversation" with a computer,<ref name="Weizenbaum2">{{cite journal|first=Joseph|last=Weizenbaum|title=ELIZA--A Computer Program For the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine|journal=Communications of the ACM|publisher=[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]|volume=9|date=January 1966|access-date=2008-06-17|url=http://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/331/papers/eliza.html|doi=10.1145/365153.365168|page=36|s2cid=1896290|doi-access=free}}</ref> ELIZA's ''DOCTOR'' script was found to be surprisingly successful in eliciting emotional responses from users who, in the course of interacting with the program, began to ascribe understanding and motivation to the program's output.<ref name="Suchman1">{{cite book|first=Lucy A.|last=Suchman|title=Plans and Situated Actions: The problem of human-machine communication|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1987|isbn=978-0-521-33739-7|page=24|access-date=2008-06-17|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AJ_eBJtHxmsC&q=Suchman+Plans+and+Situated+Actions}}</ref> As Weizenbaum later wrote, "I had not realized ... that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Weizenbaum |first=Joseph |title=Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgement to Calculation |date=1976 |publisher=W. H. Freeman |isbn=978-0716704645 |page=7}}</ref> Indeed, ELIZA's code had not been designed to evoke this reaction in the first place. Upon observation, researchers discovered users unconsciously assuming ELIZA's questions implied interest and emotional involvement in the topics discussed, even when they consciously knew that ELIZA did not simulate emotion.<ref name="Billings1">{{cite news |last=Billings |first=Lee |date=2007-07-16 |title=Rise of Roboethics |url=http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/07/rise_of_roboethics.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090228092414/http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2007/07/rise_of_roboethics.php |archive-date=2009-02-28 |publisher=[[Seed (magazine)|Seed]] |quote=(Joseph) Weizenbaum had unexpectedly discovered that, even if fully aware that they are talking to a simple computer program, people will nonetheless treat it as if it were a real, thinking being that cared about their problems – a phenomenon now known as the 'Eliza Effect'.}}</ref>

Although the effect was first named in the 1960s, the tendency to understand mechanical operations in psychological terms was noted by [[Charles Babbage]]. In proposing what would later be called a [[carry-lookahead adder]], Babbage remarked that he found such terms convenient for descriptive purposes, even though nothing more than mechanical action was meant.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Green|first=Christopher D.|author-link=Christopher D. Green|title=Was Babbage's Analytical Engine an Instrument of Psychological Research?|journal=History of Psychology|volume=8|number=1|pages=35–45|date=February 2005|doi=10.1037/1093-4510.8.1.35 |pmid=16021763 }}</ref>