Who is Eliza?

ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program created from 1964 to 1966 at MIT by Joseph Weizenbaum. It is one of the pioneering programs in the field of natural language processing and artificial intelligence. ELIZA was designed to simulate conversation with a Rogerian psychotherapist and was created to explore communication between humans and machines.

ELIZA operates by analyzing user inputs and generating responses based on pattern matching and transformation rules. It uses a set of predefined scripts and rules to simulate conversation in a way that resembles human interaction. ELIZA was primarily based on the concept of "reflection," where it would respond to the user's statements and questions by reformulating them as open-ended questions.

Although ELIZA was a simple program by today's standards, it was a groundbreaking development at the time. It demonstrated that even relatively simple algorithms could create the illusion of understanding and engaging in a conversation. ELIZA had a significant impact on the development of natural language processing and chatbot technology.

Since its creation, ELIZA has been the subject of numerous adaptations and variations. It has been used as a framework for creating chatbots and has inspired many subsequent developments in the field. Today, ELIZA serves as a foundational piece of the history and development of conversational AI.