ELIZA, the world’s first chatbot, has been successfully revived after being lost for 60 years. Developed by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum in the 1960s, the program simulated conversation as a psychotherapist, marking an early example of human-computer interaction.
The original code, written in the now-rare MAD-SLIP programming language, was rediscovered in 2021 by cognitive scientist Jeff Shrager from Stanford University and archivist Myles Crowley from MIT. The researchers were able to debug the code and create an emulator to run it on modern systems, successfully bringing ELIZA back to life on December 21, 2024.
The 420-line code, which had been thought to be lost, was found among Weizenbaum’s papers. While the program’s conversational abilities are simpler than today’s AI systems, its ability to guide discussions with follow-up questions was a groundbreaking feature at the time.
To maintain the authenticity of the original program, the researchers chose not to fix a minor bug, preserving ELIZA in its original form. This decision reflects an effort to keep the program’s history intact.
While far less sophisticated than modern AI, ELIZA’s revival highlights the early development of artificial intelligence and its role in shaping subsequent advancements in human-computer interaction.
Source: Bongo Wiki
