@mattsheffield@mastodon.social the idea that Eliza could be taken seriously by anyone was immediately ludicrous to me from the first time I ran the program as a teenager. I kept hearing that people would actually feel like they were understood by the program so one day I decided to suspend disbelief and pretend I didn't know better. I ran the program and spent 30 minutes talking to it like I thought it was just an awkward person. After about 15 minutes, I started to understand how people could feel like this was a real experience. The further I got into the exercise, the more inclined I was to meet it half the way. People regularly respond incoherently and instead of mocking them, we restate what we meant. I started to do that and the conversation actually flowed. Of course it was mostly just me talking to myself, but it only took one or two lucky responses by Eliza to trigger a surprise hit of dopamine to make it feel more rewarding than just writing a journal. #AI