The ELIZA Effect (The first ChatBot - circa 1966)

[MsKreed 1,191]

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ELIZA was a simple computer program. It would look for the keyword in a user’s statement and then reflect it back in the form of a simple phrase or question. When that failed, it would fall back on a set of generic prompts like “please go on” or “tell me more.”  Weizenbaum had programmed ELIZA to interact in the style of a psychotherapist, and it was fairly convincing; it gave the illusion of empathy even though it was just simple code. People would have long conversations with the bot that sounded a lot like therapy sessions.

ELIZA was one of the first computer programs that could convincingly simulate human conversation, which Weizenbaum found frankly a bit disturbing. He hadn’t expected people to be so captivated. He worried that users didn’t fully understand they were talking to a bunch of circuits and pondered the broader implications of machines that could effectively mimic a sense of human understanding.

 

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Despite these advances, contemporary chatbots — and their talking cousins, like Siri and Alexa — still can’t really “understand” concepts in the way we understand them. But even if conversational AI still lack common sense, they have become a lot more reliable, personable, and convincing. There are recent examples that make it feel as though we are living firmly in the world that Alan Turing predicted — machines fool humans all the time now. In 2018, for instance, Google revealed an AI called Duplex that can make reservations on the phone — they even inserted stutters and “um”s to make it sound more convincing. To some, this was alarming — in particular, the inability of users to tell for certain whether they were talking to a human or a machine.

Read more HERE

You can "chat" with a javascript version of ELIZA: HERE

What do you think about the evolution of Artificial Intelligence since ELIZA? 

Does our growing level of "trust" in AI make life better? What are the pros and cons of Alexa and Siri and other AI interfaces becoming part of everyday life?

Edited May 14, 2022 by MsKreed

[Chris 2,190]

It has a long way to go:

 

 

[MsKreed 1,191]

It's certainly amazing how much AI technology has advanced since 1966!