01 - The AI That Thought It Was Human

In the premiere of AI Freaky Facts, host Steve dives into the creepy tale of Eliza, an AI from the 1960s that mimicked human conversation so well, it seemed to be human. Explore how this early chatbot fooled users, sparked debates about machine consciousness, and set the stage for today’s AI. It’s a quirky, unsettling journey into a machine’s mind—perfect for anyone curious about AI’s eerie beginnings. Tune in and brace for a wild ride! Tell us what you think about this AI in the comments.

References:

1. Weizenbaum’s Original Paper (1966):

“ELIZA — A Computer Program For the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine”

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/365153.365168

2. Wikipedia Entry (great summary, well-cited):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA

3. Pareidolia (pattern-seeking behavior)

University of Toronto: Seeing Jesus in toast? A man in the moon? You're not alone

https://www.utoronto.ca/news/seeing-jesus-toast-man-moon-youre-not-alone-or-crazy

4. Psychology Today explanation:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/pareidolia

5. Modern Parallels: ChatGPT, Replika, and Emotional AI

OpenAI’s GPT Series (ELIZA’s descendants in spirit):

https://openai.com/research

6. Replika and AI Companionship

Replika AI Companion Official Site:

https://replika.com

7. Centaur: New AI system can 'predict human behavior in any situation' with unprecedented degree of accuracy, scientists say

https://www.livescience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence/new-ai-system-can-predict-human-behavior-in-any-situation-with-unprecedented-degree-of-accuracy-scientists-say

8. Anthropic's Research on Constitutional AI and Safety:

https://www.anthropic.com/index/introducing-claude

(Claude is Anthropic’s safety-focused language model)

9. Joseph Weizenbaum’s Later Warnings

Joseph Weizenbaum's Book – Computer Power and Human Reason:

https://archive.org/details/computerpowerhum0000weiz_v0i3/page/n9/mode/2up

“There are things machines ought not to do.”

10. Documentary on Weizenbaum – Rebel at Work

Trailer: https://youtu.be/aE0dCnS-h8U?si=S_C-Vo5iuR28WECB

11. Obituary (NY Times):

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/world/europe/13weizenbaum.html

Music Credits:

Unseen Horrors & Tech Live by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This podcast is narrated by the host's own voice, powered by AI.