Eliza - the 1960s therapeutic chatbot returns in a web version

The article on the NJIT website discusses Eliza, one of the first chat programs designed to conduct conversations in a psychotherapeutic style. This program was created by Joseph Weizenbaum in the 1960s and was intended to simulate conversations with a psychiatrist. Eliza operated on the principle of natural language processing, using a set of rules to analyze user input and generate appropriate responses. As a result, individuals could interact with the computer, perceiving it as if they were conversing with a real person. Despite its limitations, the program was a pioneering step toward the development of artificial intelligence and language processing. The article also addresses some of the interpretations and critiques that Eliza generated, making it an important document in the history of computing and AI.