Conversational computers have come a long way
But still have a long way to go
PEOPLE HAVE been conversing with computers since the 1960s, when Joseph Weizenbaum of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created a “chatbot” called Eliza. Eliza was designed as both an electronic parlour trick and as a gentle mockery of psychotherapists. Its chief conversational gambit was repeating its interlocutors’ statements back to them in the form of questions. Yet Weizenbaum was surprised to discover that some of Eliza’s human interlocutors began to treat it as if it truly understood what they were telling it.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Conversational computers have come a long way”
From the February 13th 2021 edition
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