What do you mean Eliza's daddy is dead? Tell me more...

Joseph Weizenbaum, father of the Eliza chatbot (it feels wrong to call it a chatbot, doesn't it?) died at 85. I remember as a young kid playing with Eliza, fascinated by the possibility of machine intelligence (and trying hard to believe in it in spite of having analyzed the code and realized that, well, I couldn't find a soul in those lines). The New York Times has a nice article about Weizenbaum's life.

Comments

[Ken]

The manufacturing guys over at Evolving Excellence have another positive tribute from a slightly difference perspective.

http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2008/03/joseph-weizenba.html

Ken