I first used Eliza at an open day at Birmingham University in around 1976: at that time, it seemed sophisticated. I also used it a few times later on different machines. Today it seems dumb.
Apparently, the reason why people thought it was a human was that they thought it was too stupid to be a chatbot! Clearly, most people have had their first experience of a chatbot in the last year.
You can have a go with Eliza here -
link. Within 30 seconds of using it, I remember exactly what it's like!
Eliza was written by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1965. He was a Jew who escaped from National Socialist Germany in 1936 with his family (
link). He wrote it to talk in the style of a Rogerian therapist, with lots of empathy.
Article about Eliza beating ChatGPT:
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/chatgpt-turing-test-failed-ai-b2459930.html
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