ELIZA: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|Natural language processing computer program}}

{{Redirect|DOCTOR||Doctor (disambiguation)}}

| released            = {{Start year and age|1966}}

| genre                = [[Chatbot]]

'''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=978-3-89733-467-0 |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 gave no response 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=978-1-55860-191-8 |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|archive-date=August 13, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210813233541/https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org/the-original-eliza|url-status=dead}}</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 expression]].<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/|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/ |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 [[chatbot]]s (originally "chatterbots") 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 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]]. 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 }}{{Dead link|date=July 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</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>  

 

[[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=978-0-262-01343-7 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts}}</ref>

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 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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Weizenbaum |first=Joseph |title=ELIZA — A Computer Program For the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine |journal=Communications of the ACM |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=36–45 |year=1966 |doi=10.1145/365153.365168}}</ref>

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=978-0-262-01343-7 |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" />

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>

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>

* {{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=978-1-55860-191-8}}.

* {{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=978-0-262-51753-9}}.

* {{Citation | last = Weizenbaum | first = Joseph | author-link = Joseph Weizenbaum | year = 1976 |page=6 | title = Computer power and human reason: from judgment to calculation | isbn = 978-0-7167-0463-8 | 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 = 978-0-19-823876-8 | 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 }}.

* [https://sites.google.com/view/elizagen-org/original-eliza ELIZAGEN]—Weizenbaum's original code for ELIZA

* {{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://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

 

[[Category:1960s electronic literature works]]

[[Category:American electronic literature works]]