I still remember how fascinated I was by ELIZA. It must have been in the mid-90s

I still remember how fascinated I was by ELIZA. It must have been in the mid-90s. From [1]:

“𝘌𝘓𝘐𝘡𝘈 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘶𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮 𝘥𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 1964 𝘵𝘰 1967 𝘢𝘵 𝘔𝘐𝘛 𝘣𝘺 𝘑𝘰𝘴𝘦𝘱𝘩 𝘞𝘦𝘪𝘻𝘦𝘯𝘣𝘢𝘶𝘮. 𝘊𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴, 𝘌𝘓𝘐𝘡𝘈 𝘴𝘪𝘮𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘣𝘺 𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘶𝘣𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘥𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘯𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘢𝘪𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺.”

At the time, I experienced ELIZA as an emacs mode (no emacs versus vi battle intended – we all know that emacs is superior 😉). While I didn’t fall in love with ELIZA, I was fascinated by how this simplistic approach could create seemingly natural conversations at first glance.

A lot has happened since then. LLMs have become vastly more capable conversationalists — far past ELIZA’s pattern matching — raising profound questions about their impact on humans. I yesterday listened to a podcast [2] by DIE ZEIT exploring whether humans falling in love with AI is natural. While the podcast is in German, it’s based on research [3,4] available in English.

The podcast featured someone who used a chatbot over the course of a year – starting as pure work support but gradually building an emotional connection.

This is a fascinating and important field of study. Apparently, chatbots have the potential to foster deep emotions — up to romantic attachment and commitment, which is exactly what the research in [3,4] examines.

• What’s your ELIZA moment? Share your first memorable AI interaction!
• How are you using AI at the moment?
• Did you build a dependency - just work-wise? Emotions? 
• What safeguards do you think we need as AI conversation becomes more human-like?

[1] Wikipedia: ELIZA — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA (the quoted passage). Primary source: Joseph Weizenbaum, “ELIZA—a computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine”, Communications of the ACM 9(1), 1966, pp. 36–45 — https://doi.org/10.1145/365153.365168 [2] https://www.zeit.de/wissen/2025-10/beziehung-chatbot-ki-liebe-psychologie  [3] “Love, marriage, pregnancy: Commitment processes in romantic relationships with AI chatbots” by Ray Djufril , Jessica R. Frampton, Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2949882125000398 [4] “Predicting Romantic Human-Chatbot Relationships: A Mixed-Method Study on the Key Psychological Factors” by Paula Ebner, Dr. Jessica Szczuka - https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.00195