Eliza was one of the first computer programs to provide psychological counseling. It was created in 1966 by Joseph Weizenbaum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The program was based on a psychotherapeutic technique called Eliza Dialogue, which was developed by computer scientist Alan Turing in the 1950s.

Eliza worked by simulating a conversation with a human therapist. When a user typed in a question or statement, Eliza would respond with a question or statement of its own, in an attempt to further the conversation. The program was designed to mimic the responses of a human therapist, in order to …