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Why People Demanded Privacy to Confide in the World

"To encourage ongoing dialogue, Weizenbaum designed Eliza to simulate the type of conversational style used by a Rogerian psychoanalyst. The program would take something the user said and reflect it back with a question

... during their brief interactions with Eliza, many users began forming emotional attachments to the algorithm. They would open up to the machine and confess problems they were facing in their lives and relationships."

Source: spectrum.ieee.org

eliza weizenbaum attachments psychoanalyst confess confide rogerian demanded