Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
U.S. History
All the major chapters in the American story, from Indigenous beginnings to the present day.
World History
History from countries and communities across the globe, including the world’s major wars.
Eras & Ages
From prehistory, though antiquity and into the 21st century, all of history’s biggest chapters.
Culture & Tradition
The stories behind the faiths, food, entertainment and holidays that shape our world.
Science & Innovation
The pivotal discoveries, visionary inventors and natural phenomena that impacted history.
By: Kelli María Korducki
The world’s first chatbot deeply unsettled its creator.
In 1966, computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum built a primitive computer program he named ELIZA. Almost immediately, he regretted his creation.
Developed to mimic simple psychotherapy exchanges, ELIZA sparked unexpectedly deep reactions. Users opened up, shared intimate details about themselves and treated the program as if it were human. The response was so intense that even Weizenbaum’s secretary at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reportedly asked him to step out so she could speak with the program in private.
ELIZA is widely recognized as the world’s first chatbot, and a version of it is still available online today. Its creation made Weizenbaum a pioneer of artificial intelligence and language-processing models, programs designed to analyze and generate responses by recognizing patterns in text.
“What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people,” Weizenbaum recalled in his 1976 book, Computer Power and Human Reason. This phenomenon, which became known as the “ELIZA effect,” deeply disturbed him.
Until his death in 2008, he devoted his life to being one of technology’s fiercest and most vocal critics.
Grace Hopper, pioneer of computer science, lived in Virginia later in life and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
The world’s first chatbot was never intended to push the limits of artificial intelligence.
“Weizenbaum designed ELIZA more as a psychological experiment than a technological one,” explains Brian Merchant, author of Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech. “He was interested in how humans interact with machines, and he designed ELIZA as a means of investigating that relationship.”
ELIZA worked by scanning a user’s typed input for keywords and generating responses that resembled human conversation based on pattern matching. “ELIZA shows, if nothing else, how easy it is to create and maintain the illusion of understanding,” Weizenbaum wrote. He believed that once the program’s mechanisms were revealed, the “magic” would “crumble away.”
But Merchant says that Weizenbaum was “appalled” by the way users sought emotional intimacy with the bot, especially given how basic the technology was. Even after being told that the program was rudimentary, users continued to attribute understanding, empathy and intention to ELIZA. The response revealed an unsettling insight into the human-machine dynamic.
Woman working on a computer, Geneva, 1966.
Woman working on a computer, Geneva, 1966.
“Weizenbaum recognized that our desire to form relationships, and the ease with which a computer program could be built and sold to prey upon that desire, would leave people vulnerable to mass exploitation at the hands of whoever owned and operated the computer systems,” Merchant says.
Luke Fernandez, an associate professor at Weber State University’s School of Computing, similarly points out that Weizenbaum saw humans’ “power of projection” as a potential risk factor in the evolving relationship between humans and machines.
“Weizenbaum dismissed the idea that there was anything inevitable about where technology might take us or that agency resided in technology itself,” Fernandez says. He worried that if humans placed too much stock in machines, we might jeopardize our accountability to each other.
In 1969, Stanford programmer Bill Duvall sent the first inter-computer communication, which many consider to be the birth of the internet.
Weizenbaum strongly believed that human judgment and reasoning carried a moral responsibility, which shaped his understanding of technology and AI.
Forced to flee Nazi Germany as a young teen, Weizenbaum saw firsthand how the Nazis’ genocidal agenda had been aided by the scores of everyday people who looked the other way. He also recognized the powerful impact of the Nazis’ antisemitic propaganda, which dehumanized Jewish families like his in service of the Nazis’ eugenic effort to engineer a so-called perfect race. This campaign of dehumanization sowed complacency in the general public.
Given his background, Weizenbaum was especially troubled by the dehumanizing language some of his peers used when comparing human reasoning with the possibilities of AI. He bristled at MIT researcher Marvin Minsky’s description of human beings as “meat machines,” and chafed at leading technologists’ implication that future robots could present “a correction and improvement on nature.” Weizenbaum emphasized that this line of thinking had fueled some of the greatest atrocities in history.
Joseph Weizenbaum demonstrates ELIZA, May 2005.
Joseph Weizenbaum demonstrates ELIZA, May 2005.
“In the Nazi era, Jews were portrayed as vermin, a metaphor that legitimized mass murder,” Weizenbaum told German journalist Bernhard Pörksen in 1998. “Today…the idea that man is merely an information-processing machine that can be replaced by a robot is gaining substance and power.”
Weizenbaum warned that the “immense power of an inhumane image of man” can “spread like a virus in a society," and that humanity must fiercely guard against it.
Though Weizenbaum was never dismissive of the future capabilities of technology like AI, the potential power of machines was never his chief concern. Instead, he feared that people’s projections onto these machines would hamper their better judgment. From the 1970s through the early 2000s, he was an advocate for technology ethics, urging scientists to confront the social consequences of their work.
The risk he foresaw was not that technologies like AI would evolve into civilization-destroying monsters, but that society would look upon them as false idols. The real threat to humanity came from within, he believed; technology simply gave it an outlet.
Weizenbaum repeatedly insisted to his friends: “I’m not an AI critic. I’m a critic of society."
Many people associate aspirin with willow bark, but the pills in your cabinet don’t come from a tree.
Though people have been skiing for thousands of years, mechanical lifts only recently began carrying them upslope.
These secret codes enabled secure communication—at least until others found ways to crack them.
Kelli María Korducki is a Brooklyn-based journalist, writer and editor who covers business, technology, work and culture.
We strive for accuracy and fairness. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! HISTORY reviews and updates its content regularly to ensure it is complete and accurate.
Get fascinating history stories twice a week that connect the past with today’s world, plus an in-depth exploration every Friday.
