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Inventing ELIZA: How the First Chatbot Shaped the Future of AI. “This book presents the rediscovered original source code of ELIZA alongside previously unseen scripts…, revealing a far more sophisticated system than previously documented.”

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Caroline G.

Oh man, I spent so many hours playing around with ELIZA as a kid (to be totally honest, it was a lot of swearing at her and seeing how she reacted). I got so used to the idea of talking to a computer that when my dad first showed me an AOL chat room in the early/mid 90s, I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea that actual humans were talking to one another. 

Jason KottkeMOD

Here's the book's companion website: ELIZA Archaeology Project, where among other things, you can try out ELIZA for yourself.

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