ELIZA, the first chatbot

Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT builds a program that imitates a psychotherapist. It understands nothing, yet many users feel that it understands them.

Why it is in the museum

Here the basic questions of modern AI take shape: how can thought be described, how can a machine learn, and what does it mean for a machine to hold a convincing conversation?

What supports this exhibit

Primary scientific paper

How ELIZA operates through keywords and decomposition/reassembly rules.

Main source: Weizenbaum, J. (1966), “ELIZA”, Communications of the ACM 9(1), 36–45.

Open the source

What to keep in mind: Primary source.

Ask the exhibit

This small guide uses only the information documented on this exhibit page. If your question goes beyond that evidence, it will say so instead of inventing an answer.

Start with one of the suggested questions above, or type your own.