Inventing Eliza

Description

60 years ago, MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum created a simple chatbot named ELIZA. Programmed to respond to queries in the style of a Rogerian psychotherapist, the program’s open-ended dialogue proved uncannily absorbing—to the point that Weizenbaum, alarmed by how easily people confided in his program, became the first critic of Artificial Intelligence. On Sunday, July 19th, join us at @wilshireonline for an afternoon discussion about ELIZA, Weizenbaum’s legacy, and our parasocial attachments to chatbots with three of the authors of Inventing ELIZA, the first comprehensive critical analysis of Weizenbaum’s system: pioneering new media artist Peggy Weil, electronic literature scholar Mark Marino, and software developer Arthur I. Schwartz. We’ll learn about how the team rediscovered and reconstructed Weizenbaum’s lost source code, and how to read ELIZA and its inheritors through the lens of critical code studies. Onsite ELIZA therapy sessions will be available :)Program co-presented by @tape_losangeles & @wilshireonline🤝Inventing ELIZA: How the First Chatbot Shaped the Future of AI will be published by @mitpress July 14th, 2026.