Weizenbaum’s nightmares: how the inventor of the first chatbot turned against AI

The Audio Long Read

The Guardian

Society & Culture

4.3 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 September 2023

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum was there at the dawn of artificial intelligence – but he was also adamant that we must never confuse computers with humans. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/longreadpod

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:08.8	Welcome to The Guardian Long Read, showcasing the best long-form journalism covering culture,
0:13.6	politics and new thinking. For the text version of this and all our long reads,
0:17.6	go to TheGuardian.com for a slash long read.
0:20.9	Vyzenbaum's Nightmares, how the inventor of the first chatbot turned against AI,
0:29.6	by Ben Tarnoff.
0:37.5	In 1966, an MIT professor named Joseph Vyzenbaum created the first chatbot.
0:44.9	He cast it in the role of a psychotherapist.
0:48.1	A user would type a message on an electric typewriter connected to a mainframe.
0:53.2	After a moment, the psychotherapist would reply.
0:58.3	User, men are all alike.
1:01.6	Chatbot, in what way?
1:05.0	User, they're always bugging us about something or other.
1:09.4	Chatbot, can you think of a specific example?
1:13.6	User, well, my boyfriend made me come here.
1:18.0	Chatbot, your boyfriend made you come here?
1:22.3	User, he says I'm depressed much of the time.
1:26.5	Chatbot, I am sorry to hear you are depressed.
1:31.8	Vyzenbaum published this sample exchange in a journal article that explained how the chatbot worked.
1:38.0	The software was relatively simple.
1:41.7	It looked at the user input and applied a set of rules to generate a plausible response.
1:47.6	He called the program Eliza.
	...

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