ELIZA, The World’s First Chatbot, Brought Back From The Dead

As we navigate the vast sea of modern Large Language Models, some visionary programmers are taking a nostalgic journey back to the origins of artificial conversation by reviving ELIZA, the first chatbot, using its original code. This historical occurrence arrives six decades after ELIZA’s inception, crafted by Joseph Weizenbaum at MIT and named after the character Eliza Doolittle from “Pygmalion”. As the progenitor of operating chatbots, ELIZA’s revival marks a significant moment in AI history.

The aspiration of machines that communicate like humans has been in discussion long before ELIZA. Alan Turing’s concept of a machine capable of fooling others into believing it was human, which we now respect as the Turing Test, laid the groundwork. Even a century prior, Ada Lovelace envisioned Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine performing tasks beyond numerical calculations, but it was indeed Weizenbaum who realized this vision.

Now ELIZA returns, accessible on today’s computers, ready to offer a walk down memory lane for those intrigued by its primitive yet pioneering charm.

ELIZA boasted several scripts, the most noted being its impersonation of a psychotherapist who echoed the user’s words, encouraging deeper introspection. Users would engage by typing messages, receiving questions that urged them to elaborate on or explore their concerns. This method was designed to facilitate an ongoing dialogue that might lead to personal breakthroughs. ELIZA’s design captivated early computer pioneers who found the tool remarkably engaging.

Carl Sagan, in his work “The Dragons of Eden,” demonstrated how an enhanced version of ELIZA could perform convincingly enough as a therapist, temporarily leading users to believe they were conversing with an actual human. Conversations recorded between users and ELIZA sometimes revealed profound insights, perhaps ones users were hesitant to confront regarding their personal or relationship challenges.

The evolution from ELIZA to its successors is monumental, though its impact invites mixed feelings. ELIZA’s straightforward querying approach, which inherently avoided falsehoods, starkly contrasts with the complex—and sometimes less honest—dialogues of today’s AI options. This offers a refreshing perspective amidst current trends filled with misinformation and contentious issues like defamation.

The team responsible for reviving ELIZA argues that the lessons it imparted have been fundamental in shaping today’s AI landscape. “It is embedded in the AI psyche,” they assert, underscoring ELIZA’s long-lasting influence on artificial intelligence.

Though ELIZA’s legacy endured among computing historians, its original code became obsolete as new programming languages emerged. In a remarkable turn of events, the original source code was unearthed by Jeff Shrager (a creator of a 1970s BASIC version of ELIZA) and MIT archivist Myles Crowley from Weizenbaum’s personal documents.

Partnering with the Weizenbaum estate, Shrager, along with Lane and other collaborators, embarked on the task of digitally “resurrecting” ELIZA. They describe the undertaking as “not simple,” involving numerous stages of code refinement and enhancement, emulator stack installations, extensive debugging of the found code, and the development of entirely new functions absent from the discovered materials or available MAD and SLIP implementations.

Interestingly, the archives sometimes only contained draft versions of ELIZA’s scripts rather than those disseminated to the public. The team corrected these and validated their restoration against documented conversations with the original ELIZA, finding the responses strikingly similar.

A peculiar issue surfaced during ELIZA’s reanimation—any numerical input by a user tends to disrupt the currently revived version. This limitation serves as a crucial disclaimer for those eager to download ELIZA and experience it firsthand on their personal computers.

In its renewed form, ELIZA extends an invitation to engage in a thought-provoking dialogue where you might be compelled to confront evasive thoughts—gratis. Yet, ELIZA maintains a distinct advantage: it will not falsely credit the JWST with creating the first exoplanet image, devolve into racism within days, or diminish your critical thinking faculty.

The revival of ELIZA is a tribute to the ingenuity involved in the early days of AI and a reminder of the discipline’s foundational achievements. For those wishing to explore a piece of technological history, ELIZA offers an intriguing glimpse into how far—and in some ways, how little—chatbots have evolved since their inception.

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