New book recovers the missing source code of the ELIZA chatbot

In short: A new book says it has recovered the long-missing source code for ELIZA, a famous 1960s chatbot made at MIT.

What happened

ELIZA is often described as one of the first chatbots, meaning a computer program that talks with people through typed messages. It was created in the 1960s by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum, and it became known for a “DOCTOR” role that copied the style of a therapist.

According to an excerpt from the new book Inventing ELIZA, researchers found ELIZA’s source code in the MIT Archives. Source code is the program’s written instructions, like a recipe that shows exactly how the responses were produced. The authors say this code has been missing from many popular retellings of ELIZA’s history.

The book also argues there were “many ELIZAs,” not just the well-known DOCTOR script. In other words, the program could be set up to follow different scripts or personalities. The excerpt revisits the famous sample conversation that starts with “Men are all alike,” and raises basic questions that have lingered for decades, including who wrote the example dialog and how much was edited.

Why it matters

ELIZA helped reveal how easily people can treat a responsive program as if it understands them. This tendency is sometimes called the “ELIZA effect,” which is the habit of reading more intelligence and empathy into a computer than is really there. As today’s chatbots become common in customer service, school, and companionship apps, the book’s message is a reminder to ask what is happening behind the curtain.

Source: Wired