Editing ELIZA

{{Short description|Early natural language processing computer program}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{Other uses}}
{{redirect|DOCTOR||Doctor (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox software
| name                 = ELIZA
| title                = ELIZA
| logo                 = 
| screenshot           = ELIZA_conversation.png
| screenshot alt       = Screenshot showing a terminal-based conversation with the ELIZA program
| caption              = A conversation with ELIZA
| author               = [[Joseph Weizenbaum]]
| developer            = [[MIT]]
| released             = 1966
| operating system     = [[Compatible Time-Sharing System|CTSS]]
| platform             = [[IBM 7094]]
| programming language = [[SLIP (programming language)|MAD-SLIP]]
| genre                = [[Chatterbot]]
| license              = [[Public domain]]
| website              = {{URL|https://elizagen.org}}
}}

'''ELIZA''' is an early [[natural language processing]] [[computer program]] developed from 1964 to 1967<ref name="turing">{{Cite web |title = Alan Turing at 100 |url = http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/09/alan-turing-at-100/ |website = Harvard Gazette |date = 13 September 2012 |access-date = 2016-02-22}}</ref> at [[MIT]] by [[Joseph Weizenbaum]].<ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Berry |first=David M. |title=Hello, I'm Eliza: Fünfzig Jahre Gespräche mit Computern |publisher=Projekt Verlag |year=2018 |isbn=9783897334670 |language=de |trans-title=Hello, I'm Eliza: Fifty Years of Conversations with Computers |editor-last=Baranovska |editor-first=Marianna |edition=1st |location=Berlin |pages=53–70 |chapter=Weizenbaum, ELIZA and the End of Human Reason |editor-last2=Höltgen |editor-first2=Stefan}}</ref>{{sfn|Weizenbaum|1976}}{{pn|date=April 2025}} Created to explore communication between humans and machines, ELIZA simulated conversation by using a [[pattern matching]] and substitution [[methodology]] that gave users an illusion of [[natural-language understanding|understanding]] on the part of the program, but had no representation that could be considered really understanding what was being said by either party.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |title=Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming |last=Norvig |first=Peter |publisher=Morgan Kaufmann Publishers |year=1992 |isbn=1-55860-191-0 |location=New York |pages=151–154}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|last=Weizenbaum|first=Joseph|date=January 1966|title=ELIZA--A Computer Program for the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine|url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/365153.365168|journal=Communications of the ACM|volume=9|pages=36–45|doi=10.1145/365153.365168|s2cid=1896290}}</ref><ref name="Baranovska" /> Whereas the ELIZA program itself was written (originally)<ref>{{Cite web|title=ELIZAGEN - The Original ELIZA|url=https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org/the-original-eliza|access-date=2021-05-31|website=sites.google.com|language=en-US}}</ref> in [[SLIP (programming language)|MAD-SLIP]], the pattern matching directives that contained most of its language capability were provided in separate "scripts", represented in a [[s-expression|lisp-like representation]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Berry |first=David M. |date=2023-11-06 |title=The Limits of Computation: Joseph Weizenbaum and the ELIZA Chatbot |url=https://ojs.weizenbaum-institut.de/index.php/wjds/article/view/106 |journal=Weizenbaum Journal of the Digital Society |language=en |volume=3 |issue=3 |doi=10.34669/WI.WJDS/3.3.2 |issn=2748-5625}}</ref> The most famous script, DOCTOR, simulated a [[Rogerian psychotherapy|psychotherapist of the Rogerian school]] (in which the therapist often reflects back the patient's words to the patient),<ref name=":9">{{Cite journal |last=Dillon |first=Sarah |date=2020-01-02 |title=The Eliza effect and its dangers: from demystification to gender critique |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2020.1754642 |journal=Journal for Cultural Research |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=1–15 |doi=10.1080/14797585.2020.1754642 |s2cid=219465727 |issn=1479-7585}}</ref><ref name="rogers">{{Cite journal |title =The computational therapeutic: exploring Weizenbaum's ELIZA as a history of the present |journal=AI & Society |volume=34 |issue=4 |pages=803–812 |doi=10.1007/s00146-018-0825-9 |year=2019 |last1=Bassett |first1=Caroline|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="The Samantha Test">{{Cite magazine |title=The Samantha Test |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-samantha-test/ampwebsite=newyorker.com |access-date=2019-05-25 |archive-date=2020-07-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731160448/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-samantha-test/ampwebsite=newyorker.com |url-status=dead }}</ref> and used rules, dictated in the script, to respond with non-directional questions to user inputs. As such, ELIZA was one of the first [[chatterbot]]s ("chatbot" modernly) and one of the first programs capable of attempting the [[Turing test]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Marino |first=Mark |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/3c91805eb882d2a56d58aaa6f809fa50/ |title=Chatbot: The Gender and Race Performativity of Conversational Agents |publisher=University of California |year=2006}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Marino |first1=Mark C. |last2=Berry |first2=Dav id M. |date=2024-11-03 |title=Reading ELIZA: Critical Code Studies in Action |url=https://electronicbookreview.com/essay/reading-eliza-critical-code-studies-in-action/ |journal=Electronic Book Review |language=en-US}}</ref>

Weizenbaum intended the program as a method to explore communication between humans and machines. He was surprised and shocked that some people, including his secretary, attributed human-like feelings to the computer program,{{sfn|Weizenbaum|1976}}{{pn|date=April 2025}} a phenomenon that came to be called the [[ELIZA effect|Eliza effect]]. Many academics believed that the program would be able to positively influence the lives of many people, particularly those with psychological issues, and that it could aid doctors working on such patients' treatment.{{sfn|Weizenbaum|1976}}{{pn|date=April 2025}}<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1097/00005053-196602000-00005 |pmid=5936301 |title=A Computer Method of Psychotherapy |journal=The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease |volume=142 |issue=2 |pages=148–52 |year=1966 |last1=Colby |first1=Kenneth Mark |last2=Watt |first2=James B. |last3=Gilbert |first3=John P. |s2cid=36947398 }}</ref> While ELIZA was capable of engaging in discourse, it could not converse with true understanding.<ref name=":3">{{cite journal |last1=Shah |first1=Huma |last2=Warwick |first2=Kevin |last3=Vallverdú |first3=Jordi |last4=Wu |first4=Defeng |year=2016 |title=Can machines talk? Comparison of Eliza with modern dialogue systems |url=https://curve.coventry.ac.uk/open/items/d4c5572d-3a8f-4ed1-b085-c88f8124fd74/1/Can+Machines+Talk_+CHB_Shah-Warwick_2016+(1).pdf |journal=Computers in Human Behavior |volume=58 |pages=278–95 |doi=10.1016/j.chb.2016.01.004}}</ref> However, many early users were convinced of ELIZA's intelligence and understanding, despite Weizenbaum's insistence to the contrary.<ref name="Baranovska">{{Cite book |title=Hello, I'm Eliza fünfzig Jahre Gespräche mit Computern |publisher=Bochum Freiburg projektverlag |year=2018 |isbn=978-3-89733-467-0 |editor-last=Baranovska |editor-first=Marianna |edition=1st |location=Bochum |oclc=1080933718 |editor-last2=Höltgen |editor-first2=Stefan}}</ref> 

The original ELIZA source-code had been missing since its creation in the 1960s as it was not common to publish articles that included source code at that time. However, more recently the MAD-SLIP source-code has now been discovered in the MIT archives and published on various platforms, such as the [[Internet Archive]].<ref name=":7">{{Cite book |last1=Shrager |first1=Jeff |title=Hello, I'm Eliza: Fünfzig Jahre Gespräche mit Computern |last2=Berry |first2=David M. |last3=Hay |first3=Anthony |last4=Millican |first4=Peter |publisher=Projekt Verlag |year=2022 |editor-last=Baranovska |editor-first=Marianna |edition=2nd |location=Berlin |pages=247–248 |chapter=Finding ELIZA - Rediscovering Weizenbaum's Source Code, Comments and Faksimiles |editor-last2=Höltgen |editor-first2=Stefan}}</ref> The source-code is of high historical interest since it demonstrates not only the specificity of programming languages and techniques at that time, but also the beginning of software layering and abstraction as a means of achieving sophisticated software programming.

==Overview==
[[File:Video Game Museum in Berlin (44129332940).jpg|thumb|A conversation between a human and ELIZA's DOCTOR script]]
[[Joseph Weizenbaum]]'s ELIZA, running the DOCTOR script, created a conversational interaction somewhat similar to what might take place in the office of "a [non-directive] psychotherapist in an initial psychiatric interview"{{sfn|Weizenbaum|1976|p=188}} and to "demonstrate that the communication between man and machine was superficial".<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1016/S0747-5632(01)00004-8 |title=From Eliza to Internet: A brief history of computerized assessment |journal=Computers in Human Behavior |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=295–314 |year=2001 |last1=Epstein |first1=J. |last2=Klinkenberg |first2=W. D. }}</ref> While ELIZA is best known for acting in the manner of a psychotherapist, the speech patterns are due to the data and instructions supplied by the DOCTOR script.<ref name=":4">{{cite journal |doi=10.1162/leon.2007.40.1.31 |jstor=20206337 |title=ELIZA REDUX: A Mutable Iteration |journal=Leonardo |volume=40 |issue=1 |pages=31–6 |year=2007 |last1=Wortzel |first1=Adrianne |s2cid=57565169 }}</ref> ELIZA itself examined the text for keywords, applied values to said keywords, and transformed the input into an output; the script that ELIZA ran determined the keywords, set the values of keywords, and set the rules of transformation for the output.<ref name=":1">{{cite journal |doi=10.1145/365153.365168 |title=ELIZA—a computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine |journal=Communications of the ACM |volume=9 |pages=36–45 |year=1966 |last1=Weizenbaum |first1=Joseph |s2cid=1896290 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Weizenbaum chose to make the DOCTOR script in the context of psychotherapy to "sidestep the problem of giving the program a data base of real-world knowledge",{{sfn|Weizenbaum|1976}}{{pn|date=April 2025}} allowing it to reflect back the patient's statements to carry the conversation forward.{{sfn|Weizenbaum|1976}}{{pn|date=April 2025}} The result was a somewhat intelligent-seeming response that reportedly deceived some early users of the program.<ref name="Wardip">{{cite book |last=Wardrip-Fruin |first=Noah |oclc=827013290 |page=33 |title=Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies |date=2009 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=9780262013437 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts}}</ref>

Weizenbaum named his program ELIZA after [[Eliza Doolittle]], a working-class character in [[George Bernard Shaw]]'s ''[[Pygmalion (play)|Pygmalion]]'' (also appearing in the musical ''[[My Fair Lady]]'', which was based on the play and was hugely popular at the time). According to Weizenbaum, ELIZA's ability to be "incrementally improved" by various users made it similar to Eliza Doolittle,<ref name=":1"/> since Eliza Doolittle was taught to speak with an [[upper-class]] [[Accent (sociolinguistics)|accent]] in Shaw's play.<ref name=":9" /><ref name="weizenbaumobit">{{Citation |last=Markoff |first=John |title=Joseph Weizenbaum, Famed Programmer, Is Dead at 85 |date=2008-03-13 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/world/europe/13weizenbaum.html |author-link=John Markoff |work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=2009-01-07}}.</ref> However, unlike the human character in Shaw's play, ELIZA is incapable of learning new patterns of speech or new words through interaction alone. Edits must be made directly to ELIZA's active script in order to change the manner by which the program operates.

Weizenbaum first implemented ELIZA in his own [[SLIP (programming language)|SLIP]] list-processing language, where, depending upon the initial entries by the user, the illusion of human intelligence could appear, or be dispelled through several interchanges.<ref name=":8" /> Some of ELIZA's responses were so convincing that Weizenbaum and several others have anecdotes of users becoming emotionally attached to the program, occasionally forgetting that they were conversing with a computer.{{sfn|Weizenbaum|1976}}{{pn|date=April 2025}} Weizenbaum's own secretary reportedly asked Weizenbaum to leave the room so that she and ELIZA could have a real conversation. Weizenbaum was surprised by this, later writing: "I had not realized&nbsp;... that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people."{{sfn|Weizenbaum|1976|p=7}}

In 1966, interactive computing (via a teletype) was new. It was 11 years before the personal computer became familiar to the general public, and three decades before most people encountered attempts at [[natural language processing]] in Internet services like [[Ask.com]] or PC help systems such as Microsoft Office [[Office Assistant|Clippit]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Meyer |first=Robinson |date=2015-06-23 |title=Even Early Focus Groups Hated Clippy |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/06/clippy-the-microsoft-office-assistant-is-the-patriarchys-fault/396653/ |access-date=2023-11-07 |website=The Atlantic |language=en}}</ref> Although those programs included years of research and work, ELIZA remains a milestone simply because it was the first time a programmer had attempted such a human-machine interaction with the goal of creating the illusion (however brief) of human–''human'' interaction.{{Citation needed|date=June 2013}}

At the [[International Conference on Computer Communications|ICCC 1972]], ELIZA was brought together with another early artificial-intelligence program named [[PARRY]] for a computer-only conversation. While ELIZA was built to speak as a doctor, PARRY was intended to simulate a patient with [[schizophrenia]].<ref name="PerryElizaAtlantic">{{cite magazine |last1=Megan |first1=Garber |title=When PARRY Met ELIZA: A Ridiculous Chatbot Conversation From 1972 |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/when-parry-met-eliza-a-ridiculous-chatbot-conversation-from-1972/372428/ |magazine=The Atlantic |access-date=19 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170118165304/http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/when-parry-met-eliza-a-ridiculous-chatbot-conversation-from-1972/372428/ |archive-date=2017-01-18 |url-status=live |date=Jun 9, 2014}}</ref>

==Design and implementation==

Weizenbaum originally wrote ELIZA in MAD-SLIP for [[Compatible Time-Sharing System|CTSS]] on an [[IBM 7094]] as a program to make natural-language conversation possible with a computer.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://multicians.org/thvv/compatible-time-sharing-system.pdf |title=Compatible Time-Sharing System (1961-1973): Fiftieth Anniversary Commemorative Overview |editor-last1=Walden |editor-first1=David |editor-last2=Van Vleck |editor-first2=Tom |editor2-link=Tom Van Vleck |date=2011 |publisher=IEEE Computer Society |access-date=February 20, 2022 |quote=Joe Wiezenbaum's most famous CTSS project was ELIZA}}</ref> To accomplish this, Weizenbaum identified five "fundamental technical problems" for ELIZA to overcome: the identification of key words, the discovery of a minimal context, the choice of appropriate transformations, the generation of responses in the absence of key words, and the provision of an editing capability for ELIZA scripts.<ref name=":1" /> Weizenbaum solved these problems and made ELIZA such that it had no built-in contextual framework or universe of discourse.<ref name=":4" /> However, this required ELIZA to have a script of instructions on how to respond to inputs from users.<ref name="Baranovska" />

ELIZA starts its process of responding to an input by a user by first examining the text input for a "keyword".<ref name=":6" /> A "keyword" is a word designated as important by the acting ELIZA script, which assigns to each keyword a precedence number, or a RANK, designed by the programmer.<ref name=":3" /> If such words are found, they are put into a "keystack", with the keyword of the highest RANK at the top. The input sentence is then manipulated and transformed as the rule associated with the keyword of the highest RANK directs.<ref name=":1" /> For example, when the DOCTOR script encounters words such as "alike" or "same", it would output a message pertaining to similarity, in this case "In what way?",<ref name=":2" /> as these words had high precedence number. This also demonstrates how certain words, as dictated by the script, can be manipulated regardless of contextual considerations, such as switching first-person pronouns and second-person pronouns and vice versa, as these too had high precedence numbers. Such words with high precedence numbers are deemed superior to conversational patterns and are treated independently of contextual patterns.{{Citation needed|date=September 2023}}

Following the first examination, the next step of the process is to apply an appropriate transformation rule, which includes two parts: the "decomposition rule" and the "reassembly rule".<ref name=":1" /> First, the input is reviewed for syntactical patterns in order to establish the minimal context necessary to respond. Using the keywords and other nearby words from the input, different disassembly rules are tested until an appropriate pattern is found. Using the script's rules, the sentence is then "dismantled" and arranged into sections of the component parts as the "decomposition rule for the highest-ranking keyword" dictates. The example that Weizenbaum gives is the input "You are very helpful", which is transformed to "I are very helpful". This is then broken into (1) empty (2) "I" (3) "are" (4) "very helpful". The decomposition rule has broken the phrase into four small segments that contain both the keywords and the information in the sentence.<ref name=":1" />

The decomposition rule then designates a particular reassembly rule, or set of reassembly rules, to follow when reconstructing the sentence.<ref name=":6" /> The reassembly rule takes the fragments of the input that the decomposition rule had created, rearranges them, and adds in programmed words to create a response. Using Weizenbaum's example previously stated, such a reassembly rule would take the fragments and apply them to the phrase "What makes you think I am (4)", which would result in "What makes you think I am very helpful?". This example is rather simple, since depending upon the disassembly rule, the output could be significantly more complex and use more of the input from the user. However, from this reassembly, ELIZA then sends the constructed sentence to the user in the form of text on the screen.<ref name=":1" />

These steps represent the bulk of the procedures that ELIZA follows in order to create a response from a typical input, though there are several specialized situations that ELIZA/DOCTOR can respond to. One Weizenbaum specifically wrote about was when there is no keyword. One solution was to have ELIZA respond with a remark that lacked content, such as "I see" or "Please go on".<ref name=":1" /> The second method was to use a "MEMORY" structure, which recorded prior recent inputs, and would use these inputs to create a response referencing a part of the earlier conversation when encountered with no keywords.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |title=Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies |last=Wardip-Fruin |first=Noah |publisher=The MIT Press |year=2014 |isbn=9780262013437 |location=Cambridge |page=33 |via=eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)}}</ref> This was possible due to Slip's ability to tag words for other usage, which simultaneously allowed ELIZA to examine, store, and repurpose words for usage in outputs.<ref name=":1" />

While these functions were all framed in ELIZA's programming, the exact manner by which the program dismantled, examined, and reassembled inputs is determined by the operating script. The script is not static and can be edited, or a new one created, as is necessary for the operation in the context needed. This would allow the program to be applied in multiple situations, including the well-known DOCTOR script, which simulates a Rogerian psychotherapist.<ref name=":7" />

A [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]] version of ELIZA, based on Weizenbaum's CACM paper, was written shortly after that paper's publication by Bernie Cosell.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.codersatwork.com/bernie-cosell.html |title=Coders at Work: Bernie Cosell |website=codersatwork.com}}</ref><ref name="elizagen">{{cite web|title=elizagen.org|url=http://elizagen.org/ |website=elizagen.org}}</ref> A [[BASIC]] version appeared in ''[[Creative Computing (magazine)|Creative Computing]]'' in 1977 (although it was written in 1973 by Jeff Shrager).<ref>[http://www.atariarchives.org/bigcomputergames/showpage.php?page=20 Big Computer Games: Eliza – Your own psychotherapist] at www.atariarchives.org.</ref> This version, which was ported to many of the earliest personal computers, appears to have been subsequently translated into many other versions in many other languages. Shrager claims not to have seen either Weizenbaum's or Cosell's versions.

In 2021, Jeff Shrager searched MIT's Weizenbaum archives, along with [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] archivist Myles Crowley, and found files labeled Computer Conversations. These included the complete source code listing of ELIZA in MAD-SLIP, with the DOCTOR script attached. The Weizenbaum estate gave permission to open-source this code under a [[Creative Commons]] CC0 [[public domain]] license. The code and other information can be found on the ELIZAGEN site.<ref name="elizagen" /> The 1965 source code has been dated as part of a software archaeology project which brings together researchers from USC, University of Sussex, Oxford, and Stanford U. who have worked together to unravel the complicated history of ELIZA.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Marino |first=Dav id M. Berry Mark C. |date=2024-11-03 |title=Reading ELIZA: Critical Code Studies in Action |url=https://electronicbookreview.com/essay/reading-eliza-critical-code-studies-in-action/ |journal=Electronic Book Review |language=en-US}}</ref>  

In December 2024, Rupert Lane, with the assistance of several other engineers who had been studying the original MAD-SLIP ELIZA, brought up the original ELIZA and demonstrated that the implementation of ELIZA based on the discovered code can reproduce almost exactly the published conversations with ELIZA from Weizenbaum's 1966 paper. This original ELIZA was reconstructed using the vast majority of the 1965 version of the source code: approximately 96% of the functions.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Berry |first=David M. |date=2025 |title=Digital Ruins and Critical Code Studies: Towards an Ethics of Historical Software Reconstruction |url=https://stunlaw.blogspot.com/2025/01/digital-ruins-and-critical-code-studies.html |access-date=2025-01-26 |website=Stunlaw}}</ref> This was run on a version of the original MIT [[Compatible Time Sharing System|CTSS]] running on a [[IBM_7090#IBM_7094|7094]] emulator, both of the latter due to David Pitts.<ref name="ELIZA Reanimated">{{cite web|title=ELIZA Reanimated|url=https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org/blog/eliza-reanimated|website=elizagen.org}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.livescience.com/technology/eliza-the-worlds-1st-chatbot-was-just-resurrected-from-60-year-old-computer-code | title = 'ELIZA,' the world's 1st chatbot, was just resurrected from 60-year-old computer code | first = Kristina | last = Killgrove | date = January 18, 2025 | accessdate = January 18, 2025 | work = [[Live Science]] }}</ref>

Another version of Eliza popular among software engineers is the version that comes with the default release of [[GNU Emacs]], and which can be accessed by typing <code>[[Meta key|M]]-x doctor</code> from most modern [[Emacs]] implementations.

=== Pseudocode ===
From Figure 15.5, Chapter 15 of Speech and Language Processing (third edition).<ref>{{cite web|url=https://web.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/slp3/15.pdf|access-date=6 April 2023|website=stanford.edu|title=Chatbots & Dialogue Systems}}</ref>
 function ELIZA GENERATOR(user ''sentence'') returns ''response''
    Let ''w'' be the word in ''sentence'' that has the highest keyword rank
    if ''w'' exists
        Let r be the highest ranked rule for w that matches sentence
        ''response'' ← Apply the transform in ''r'' to ''sentence''
        if w = 'my'
            ''future'' ← Apply a transformation from the ‘memory’ rule list to ''sentence''
            Push ''future'' onto the memory queue
        else (no keyword applies)
            Either
                ''response'' ← Apply the transform for the NONE keyword to ''sentence''
            Or
                ''response'' ← Pop the oldest response from the memory queue
    Return ''response''

==Response and legacy==
Lay responses to ELIZA were disturbing to Weizenbaum and motivated him to write his book ''[[Computer Power and Human Reason|Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation]]'', in which he explains the limits of computers, as he wants to make clear his opinion that the anthropomorphic views of computers are just a reduction of human beings or any life form for that matter.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Berry |first=David M. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/868488916 |title=Critical theory and the digital |date=2014 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4411-1830-1 |location=London |oclc=868488916}}</ref> In the independent documentary film ''[[Plug & Pray]]'' (2010) Weizenbaum said that only people who misunderstood ELIZA called it a sensation.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.plugandpray-film.de/en/content.html |title=Content: Plug & Pray Film – Artificial Intelligence – Robots |last=maschafilm |website=plugandpray-film.de}}</ref>

[[David Avidan]], who was fascinated with future technologies and their relation to art, desired to explore the use of computers for writing literature. He conducted several conversations with an [[APL (programming language)|APL]] implementation of ELIZA and published them – in English, and in his own translation to [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]] – under the title ''My Electronic Psychiatrist – Eight Authentic Talks with a Computer''. In the foreword, he presented it as a form of [[constrained writing]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Avidan |first=David |title=Collected Poems |volume=3 |year=2010 |publisher=Hakibbutz Hameuchad |location=Jerusalem |oclc=804664009}}.</ref>

There are many programs based on ELIZA in different programming languages. For [[MS-DOS]] computers, some [[Sound Blaster]] cards came bundled with [[Dr. Sbaitso]], which functions like the DOCTOR script. Other versions adapted ELIZA around a religious theme, such as ones featuring Jesus (both serious and comedic), and another Apple II variant called ''I Am Buddha''. The 1980 game ''[[The Prisoner (video game)|The Prisoner]]'' incorporated ELIZA-style interaction within its gameplay. In 1988, the British artist and friend of Weizenbaum [[Brian Reffin Smith]] created two art-oriented ELIZA-style programs written in [[BASIC]], one called "Critic" and the other "Artist", running on two separate [[Amiga 1000]] computers and showed them at the exhibition "Salamandre" in the Musée du Berry, [[Bourges]], France. The visitor was supposed to help them converse by typing in to "Artist" what "Critic" said, and vice versa. The secret was that the two programs were identical. [[GNU Emacs]] formerly had a <code>psychoanalyze-pinhead</code> [[Command (computing)|command]] that simulates a session between ELIZA and [[Zippy the Pinhead]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/ibm/library/lol/pinhead.html |title=lol:> psychoanalyze-pinhead|website=[[IBM]] |archive-date=October 23, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023012103/http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/ibm/library/lol/pinhead.html}}</ref> The Zippyisms were removed due to copyright issues, but the DOCTOR program remains.

ELIZA has been referenced in popular culture and continues to be a source of inspiration for programmers and developers focused on artificial intelligence. It was also featured in a 2012 exhibit at [[Harvard University]] titled "Go Ask [[Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity|A.L.I.C.E.]]", as part of a celebration of mathematician [[Alan Turing]]'s 100th birthday. The exhibit explores Turing's lifelong fascination with the interaction between humans and computers, pointing to ELIZA as one of the earliest realizations of Turing's ideas.<ref name=turing/>

ELIZA won a 2021 Legacy [[Peabody Award]]. A 2023 [[preprint]] reported that ELIZA beat [[OpenAI]]'s [[GPT-3.5]], the model used by [[ChatGPT]] at the time, in a [[Turing test]] study. However, it did not outperform [[GPT-4]] or real humans.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Edwards |first=Benj |date=2023-12-01 |title=1960s chatbot ELIZA beat OpenAI's GPT-3.5 in a recent Turing test study |url=https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/12/real-humans-appeared-human-63-of-the-time-in-recent-turing-test-ai-study/ |access-date=2023-12-03 |website=Ars Technica |language=en-us}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last1=Jones |first1=Cameron R. |title=Does GPT-4 pass the Turing test? |date=2024-04-20 |arxiv=2310.20216 |last2=Bergen |first2=Benjamin K.}}</ref>

=== Eliza Effect ===
{{Main|ELIZA effect}}

The Eliza effect borrowed its name from ELIZA the chatbot. This effect is first defined in ''[[Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies|Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models and the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought]]''<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hofstadter |first=Douglas R. |title=Fluid concepts & creative analogies: computer models of the fundamental mechanisms of thought |date=1995 |publisher=Basic Books |others=Fluid Analogies Research Group |isbn=978-0-465-02475-9 |location=New York, NY}}</ref> as humans’ assumption of which computer programs understand the user inputs and make analogies. However, it has no permanent knowledge but “handling a list of ‘assertions’.”

This misunderstanding can potentially manipulate and misinform users. When interacting and communicating with chatbots, users can be overly confident in the reliability of the chatbots’ answers. Other than misinforming, the chatbot's human-mimicking nature can also cause severe consequences, especially for younger users who lack a sufficient understanding of the chatbot's mechanism.

== Concerns ==

=== Bias ===
When ELIZA was created in 1966, it was meant predominantly for white, male, individuals with high education. This exclusivity was especially prevalent during the creation and testing stages of the bot, which marginalized the experience of those intended users and those who did not fit into the characteristics mentioned.<ref name="rogers" /> Although this chatbot was meant to mimic human conversation with the goal of making the user think it is human, and those users would typically converse with others like them, ELIZA was named after a female character and programmed to give more feminine responses. Joseph Weizenbaum, the creator of ELIZA, has reflected upon and critiqued how ELIZA and other chatbots of the sort reinforce gender stereotypes. In particular, Weizenbaum reflects on how the script ELIZA is programmed to follow mimics a therapist's nurturing and feminine qualities.{{sfn|Weizenbaum|1976}}{{pn|date=April 2025}} He criticizes this decision by acknowledging that when technologies such as chatbots are created in such a way, they reinforce the idea that emotional and nurturing jobs are inherently feminine.

=== Accuracy and responsiveness ===
ELIZA's design, while a pioneering [[chatbot]] of its time, unveils the need to reevaluate the [[Turing test]]'s relevance in assessing [[Artificial intelligence|AI]] capabilities.

In a study titled “Does [[GPT-4]] Pass the Turing Test?” by [[University of California, San Diego]] researchers [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mhU_tUgAAAAJ&hl=en Cameron R. Jones] and [https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pJ8u7AQAAAAJ&hl=en Benjamin K. Bergen] where they explored the performance of various [[Artificial intelligence|AI]] models, including ELIZA, [[GPT-3|GPT-3.5]], and [[GPT-4]], alongside human participants in imitating human conversation, they ended up highlighting several factors that contributed to ELIZA's surprising performance. First factor was its conservative response style that minimized the risk of providing misleading or incorrect information that could have exposed that it's a machine since ELIZA was processed to build its response around a single keyword from users which meant that its accuracy was limited to syntactic response built upon predefined patterns. Further, researchers observed an absence of characteristic traits that were found in modern AI - such as helpfulness or excessive verbosity - that led them to view ELIZA as an uncooperative human.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Jones |first1=Cameron |last2=Bergen |first2=Benjamin |title=Does GPT-4 Pass the Turing Test? |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375117569 |website=ResearchGate}}</ref> Ultimately, the researchers, Cameron R. Jones and Benjamin K. Bergen from UC San Diego, pointed out how ELIZA's role in the case of ongoing conversation seems to be relevant only because of the parameters put forward by the Turing Test in 1949 which was initially thought of as an experiment and not an actual test.<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal |last=Biever |first=Celeste |date=2023-07-25 |title=ChatGPT broke the Turing test — the race is on for new ways to assess AI |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02361-7 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=619 |issue=7971 |pages=686–689 |doi=10.1038/d41586-023-02361-7|pmid=37491395 |bibcode=2023Natur.619..686B }}</ref> In the same research, they - Cameron R. Jones and Benjamin K. Bergen from UC San Diego - also observed how ELIZA ignores grammatical structure and the context of the sentence. This causes an issue as ELIZA suffers from the inability to parse sentence structures that leads to less meaningful responses. This could also stem from its knowledge gap about the topic being discussed. Unlike modern models, due to this ELIZA could not put things into a broader context. ELIZA's responsiveness is scripted and seems rigid and the reason is rooted in its underlying design, thus, changing its programming would not change its response patterns and sentence handling, rather would add more to its complexity as seen in the information shared by [[University of Birmingham]]’s excerpt ''What ELIZA lacks'' that say when a user states “''Computers worry me,''” ELIZA cannot relate this to any broader context, and often can generalize between the previous statement and “''I’m not worried much by computers''”.<ref>{{Cite web |title=What Eliza Lacks |url=https://poplogarchive.getpoplog.org/computers-and-thought/chap2/node8.html |access-date=2024-11-29 |website=poplogarchive.getpoplog.org}}</ref><ref name=":10" /> This calls for an AI capable of meaningful guidance.

{{Portal|Linguistics|Psychology}}
{{clear}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

===Bibliography===
* {{Citation |last=Norvig |first=Peter |title=ELIZA: Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming |place=San Francisco |publisher=Morgan Kaufmann Publishers |year=1992 |pages=151–154, 159, 163–169, 175, 181 |isbn=1-55860-191-0}}.
* {{Citation |last=Wardip-Fruin |first=Noah |title=Expressive Processing: Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies |place=Cumberland |publisher=MIT Press |year=2014 |pages=24–36 |isbn=978-0262517539}}.
* {{Citation | last = Weizenbaum | first = Joseph | author-link = Joseph Weizenbaum | year = 1976 | title = Computer power and human reason: from judgment to calculation | isbn = 0-7167-0463-3 | publisher = [[W. H. Freeman and Company]]| title-link = Computer Power and Human Reason }}.
* {{Citation | last = Whitby | first = Blay | author-link = Blay Whitby | year = 1996 | contribution = The Turing Test: AI's Biggest Blind Alley? | title = Machines and Thought: The Legacy of Alan Turing | volume = 1 | editor = Millican, Peter | editor2 = Clark, Andy | publisher = [[Oxford University Press]] | pages = 53–62 | isbn = 0-19-823876-2 | url = http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/blayw/tt.html | access-date = 2008-08-11 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080619033628/http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/blayw/tt.html | archive-date = 2008-06-19 | url-status = dead }}.

==Further reading==
* {{McCorduck 2004}}

==External links==
* [https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org/original-eliza ELIZAGEN] - Weizenbaum's original code for ELIZA
* [https://github.com/jeffshrager/elizagen.org Collection] of several source code versions at [[GitHub]]
* {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130120161839/http://www.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/dialogues.html |date=January 20, 2013 |title=dialogues with colorful personalities of early AI}}, a collection of dialogues between ELIZA and various conversants, such as a company vice president and [[PARRY]] (a simulation of a paranoid schizophrenic)
* [http://www.ilmarefilm.org/archive/weizenbaum_archiv_E.html Weizenbaum. Rebel at work] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225134608/http://www.ilmarefilm.org/archive/weizenbaum_archiv_E.html |date=2021-02-25 }} – Peter Haas, Silvia Holzinger, Documentary film with Joseph Weizenbaum and ELIZA.
* [https://corecursive.com/eliza-with-jeff-shrager/ CORECURSIVE #078; The History and Mystery Of Eliza; With Jeff Shrager] – Adam Gordon Bell interviews Jeff Shrager, author of the 1973/77 BASIC ELIZA, and discoverer of the original ELIZA code.
* [https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org/blog/eliza-reanimated ELIZA Reanimated] ELIZAGen.org blog post describing Rupert Lane's restoration of the original MAD-SLIP ELIZA running on CTSS on a 7094 emulator

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[[Category:History of artificial intelligence]]
[[Category:Chatbots]]
[[Category:Health software]]
[[Category:Psychotherapy]]
[[Category:Public-domain software with source code]]
[[Category:1960s electronic literature works]]
[[Category:American electronic literature works]]