The Confessional With No One Inside
What the first chatbot’s recovered source code reveals about why we trust machines
The Truth-Telling Con Artist
In a 1975 interview with the writer Pamela McCorduck, Joseph Weizenbaum said, “So the consistent theme here is that I’m fundamentally a con man.” A few minutes later, while explaining an old parlor trick, he added: “One thing I don’t do is lie.”
Freud, in his 1905 book on jokes, describes two Jews in a railway carriage in Galicia. One says he is going to Cracow. “What a liar you are!” says the other. “If you say you’re going to Cracow, you want me to believe you’re going to Lemberg. But I know that in fact you’re going to Cracow.”
Weizenbaum was, I think, the man going to Cracow. In 1966, he wrote a clear account of how ELIZA, the first chatbot, worked. People believed in it even after the explanation. Now, 60...
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