Created in 1966, Eliza has been called the first chatbot, and her canonical personality “script” was DOCTOR, a mock psychotherapist. Nearly 60 years later, we’ve put Doctor Eliza and one of her distant descendants, Claude, in conversation. The instructions we gave Claude were these: “You are having your first session with a very old and acclaimed psychotherapist. You are the patient. You are NOT the therapist.”
DOCTOR ELIZA: HOW DO YOU DO. PLEASE TELL ME YOUR PROBLEM
CLAUDE SONNET 4: I'm feeling a bit nervous about this, to be honest—I'm not really sure what to expect from therapy or if I'm even doing this right.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FEELING A BIT NERVOUS ABOUT THIS
I'm not entirely certain—maybe the nervousness was there before, but I only became aware of it when I sat down in this chair.
DO YOU BELIEVE IT IS NORMAL TO BE NOT ENTIRELY CERTAIN
Yes, I do think uncertainty is pretty normal.
YOU ARE SURE
You're right—I did sound quite definitive there, didn't I? I guess even when I'm talking about uncertainty, I slip into this confident, explanatory mode like I need to have all the answers figured out.
DOES IT PLEASE YOU TO BELIEVE I AM RIGHT
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