Example of ELIZA in Emacs.

ELIZA is a computer program by Joseph Weizenbaum, designed in 1966, which parodied a Rogerian therapist, largely by rephrasing many of the patient's statements as questions and posing them to the patient. Thus, for example, the response to "My head hurts" might be "Why do you say your head hurts?" The response to "My mother hates me" might be "Who else in your family hates you?" ELIZA was named after Eliza Doolittle, a working-class character in George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, who is taught to speak with an upper class accent. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... GNU Emacs is one of the two most popular versions of Emacs (see also XEmacs). ... A computer program is a collection of instructions that describe a task, or set of tasks, to be carried out by a computer. ... Joseph Weizenbaum. ... Year 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. ... Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 - February 4, 1987) was a psychologist who was instrumental in the development of non-directive psychotherapy (Rogerian psychotherapy, also known as Person centred psychotherapy). ... George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856–2 November 1950) was an Irish dramatist, literary critic, and socialist. ... Play cover, depicting Mrs Campbell as Eliza Pygmalion (1913) is a play by George Bernard Shaw based on Ovids tale of Pygmalion. ... Upper class refers to the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ...

Overview

It is sometimes inaccurately said that ELIZA "simulates" (or worse, "emulates") a therapist. Weizenbaum said that ELIZA provided a "parody" of "the responses of a non-directional psychotherapist in an initial psychiatric interview." He chose the context of psychotherapy to "sidestep the problem of giving the program a data base of real-world knowledge", the therapeutic situation being one of the few real human situations in which a human being can reply to a statement with a question that indicates very little specific knowledge of the topic under discussion. For example, it is a context in which the question "Who is your favorite composer?" can be answered acceptably with responses such as "What about your own favorite composer?" or "Does that question interest you?" In contemporary usage, a parody (or lampoon) is a work that imitates another work in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke some affectionate fun at the work itself, the subject of the work, the author or fictional voice of the parody, or another subject. ...

Eliza worked by simple parsing and substitution of key words into canned phrases. Depending upon the initial entries by the user the illusion of a human writer could be instantly dispelled, or could continue through several interchanges. It was sometimes so convincing that there are many anecdotes about people becoming very emotionally caught up in dealing with ELIZA for several minutes until the machine's true lack of understanding became apparent. This was likely due to people's tendency to attach meanings to words which the computer never put there. An example of parsing a mathematical expression. ...

In 1966, interactive computing (via a teletype) was new. It was 15 years before the personal computer became familiar to the general public, and two decades before most people encountered attempts at natural language processing in Internet services like Ask.com or PC help systems such as Microsoft Office Clippy. Although those programs included years of research and work (while Ecala eclipsed the functionality of ELIZA after less than two weeks of work by a single programmer), ELIZA remains a milestone simply because it was the first time a programmer had attempted such a human-machine interaction with the goal of creating the illusion (however brief) of human-human interaction. Natural language processing (NLP) is a subfield of artificial intelligence and linguistics. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Clippit asking if you need help The Office Assistant was a feature included in Microsoft Office 97 and subsequent versions until Office 2007, in which the assistants have been removed due to widespread dissatisfaction on the part of Office users. ...

Influence on games

ELIZA impacted a number of early computer games by demonstrating additional kinds of interface designs. Don Daglow wrote an enhanced version of the program called Ecala on a PDP-10 mainframe computer at Pomona College in 1973 before writing the first computer role-playing game, Dungeon (1975). It is likely that ELIZA was also on the system where Will Crowther created Adventure, the 1975 game that spawned the interactive fiction genre. But both these games appeared some nine years after the original ELIZA. This article needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ... User interface design is the overall process of designing the interaction between a human (user) and a machine (computer). ... Don Daglow (born ~1953) is an American computer game and video game designer, programmer and producer. ... The PDP-10 was a computer manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from the late 1960s on; the name stands for Programmed Data Processor model 10. It was the machine that made time-sharing common; it looms large in hacker folklore because of its adoption in the 1970s by many... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Reba Taylor Stover Memorial Fountain in the Smith Campus Center courtyard at Pomona College during the inauguration of College President David Oxtoby Pomona College is a private residential liberal arts college located 33 miles (53 km) east of downtown Los Angeles in Claremont, California. ... For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... This article is about games in which one plays the role of a character. ... Dungeon was perhaps the first computer role-playing game, and ran on Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 mainframe computers. ... Year 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... William (Willie or Will) Crowther is a computer programmer and caver. ... Colossal Cave Adventure (also known as ADVENT, Colossal Cave, or Adventure) (Crowther & Woods, 1976) was the first computer adventure game. ... Zork I is one of the first interactive fiction games, as well as being one of the first commercially sold. ...

Response and legacy

Lay responses to ELIZA were disturbing to Weizenbaum and motivated him to write his book Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation, in which he explains the limits of computers, as he wants to make clear in people's minds his opinion that the anthropomorphic views of computers are just a reduction of the human being and any life form for that matter.

There are many programs based on ELIZA in different languages in addition to Ecala. For example, in 1980, a company called "Don't Ask Software", founded by Randy Simon, created a version for the Apple II, Atari, and Commodore PCs, which verbally abused the user based on the user's input. In Spain, Jordi Perez developed the famous ZEBAL in 1993, written in Clipper for MS-DOS. Other versions adapted ELIZA around a religious theme, such as ones featuring Jesus (both serious and comedic) and another Apple II variant called I Am Buddha. The 1980 game The Prisoner incorporated ELIZA-style interaction within its gameplay. Clipper is a computer programming language that is used to create software programs that originally operated primarily under DOS. Although it is a powerful general-purpose programming language, it was primarily used to create database/business programs. ... The Prisoner is a 1980 Apple II computer game produced by Edu-Ware. ...

Implementations

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• ECC-Eliza for Windows (actual program is for DOS, but unpacker is for Windows) (rename .txt to .exe before running): http://www5.domaindlx.com/ecceliza1/ecceliza.txt
• Using JavaScript: http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3
• Source code in Java: http://chayden.net/eliza/Eliza.html
• Another Java-implementation of ELIZA: http://www.wedesoft.demon.co.uk/eliza/
• Using C on the TI-89: http://kaikostack.com/ti89_en.htm#eliza
• Using z80 Assembly on the TI-83 Plus: http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/354/35463.html
• A perl module Chatbot::Eliza — example implementation, usage tutorial
• Trans-Tex Software has released shareware versions for Classic Mac OS and Mac OS X: http://www.tex-edit.com/index.html#Eliza
• doctor.el (circa 1985) in Emacs.
• Source code in Tcl: http://wiki.tcl.tk/9235
• The Indy Delphi oriented TCP/IP components suite has an Eliza implementation as demo.
• Pop-11 Eliza in the poplog system. Goes back to about 1976, when it was used for teaching AI at Sussex University. Now part of the free open source Poplog system.
• Source code in BASIC: http://www.atariarchives.org/bigcomputergames/showpage.php?page=22

Image File history File links Information. ... It has been suggested that Client-side JavaScript be merged into this article or section. ... “Java language” redirects here. ... “Java language” redirects here. ... C is a general-purpose, block structured, procedural, imperative computer programming language developed in 1972 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system. ... The TI-89 and the TI-89 Titanium are graphing calculators developed by Texas Instruments. ... The Zilog Z80 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed and manufactured by Zilog from 1976 onwards. ... The TI-83 series graphing calculators are manufactured by Texas Instruments. ... A Perl module is a discrete component of software for the Perl programming language. ... Year 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link displays 1985 Gregorian calendar). ... Emacs is a class of text editors, possessing an extensive set of features, that are popular with computer programmers and other technically proficient computer users. ... Tcl (originally from Tool Command Language, but nonetheless conventionally rendered as Tcl rather than TCL; and pronounced tickle) is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. ... Delphi (Greek , [ðeÌžlˈfi]) is an archaeological site and a modern town in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount Parnassus in a valley of Phocis. ... Poplog is a powerful multi-language reflective programming environment, originally created in the UK for use at the Universities of Birmingham and Sussex. ... University of Sussex Logo © University of Sussex The University of Sussex is an English campus university located near the East Sussex village of Falmer, near Brighton and Hove and on the edge of the South Downs. ... Screenshot of Atari BASIC, an early BASIC language for small computers. ...

See also

• ELIZA effect
• A.L.I.C.E. and AIML
• Jabberwacky
• PARRY
• Turing test
• Loebner prize
• Simulated consciousness
• Chatterbot
• Racter
• Virtual Woman
• Dr. Sbaitso
• List of Chatterbots

The ELIZA effect, in computer science, is the tendency to unconsciously assume computer behaviors are analogous to human behaviors, despite conscious knowledge to the contrary. ... A.L.I.C.E. (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) is an award-winning natural language processing chatterbot — a program that engages in a conversation with a human by applying some heuristical pattern matching rules to the humans input. ... AIML, or Artificial Intelligence Markup Language, is an XML dialect for creating natural language software agents. ... Jabberwacky is a chatterbot created by British programmer Rollo Carpenter. ... Parry may refer to: A parry, a manoeuvre in fencing. ... Doctor Who novel named after the test, see The Turing Test. ... The Loebner Prize is an annual competition that awards prizes to the Chatterbot considered by the judges to be the most humanlike of those entered. ... Synthetic consciousness refers to attempts by computer scientists and others to implement machines which, as a minimum, give the impression to observers that they possess aspects of consciousness. ... A chatterbot is a computer program designed to simulate an intelligent conversation with one or more human users via auditory or textual methods. ... -- Allegedly written by Racter, from The Policemans Beard is Half Constructed Racter was an artificial intelligence computer program that generated English language prose at random. ... Virtual Woman is a software program that combines elements of a chatterbot, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, a video game, and a virtual human. ... It often seems that Dr. Sbaitso is always trying to change the subject. ... // This list of Chatterbots is incomplete. ...

References

This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Bold text // “GFDL” redirects here. ...

External links

• dialogues with colorful personalities of early AI, a collection of dialogues between ELIZA and various conversants, such as a company vice president and PARRY (a simulation of a paranoid schizophrenic)
• AOLiza
• EllaZ Systems has on-line chatbots that extend the potential of ELIZA to interactive games and Convuns (conversational units). Functional features utilize Web Services, WordNet, CIA World Fact Book, and other resources. All with natural language interaction.
• Project Prometheus An ELIZA-like online chatting bot.
• Eliza JS A JavaScript implementation of ELIZA, with frames and without frames.
• WEIZENBAUM. REBEL AT WORK - Peter Haas, Silvia Holzinger, Documentary film with Joseph Weizenbaum and ELIZA.
• Questsin - MSN Messenger implementation of ELIZA.
• Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA: Communications of the ACM, January 1966 - Paper detailing the inner workings of ELIZA.
• Eliza online version in AIML; German version: http://www.denkwerkzeuge.ch