I still remember the day my father sat me down in front of his IBM XT with its black and green flickering monitor and asked me to talk to "it". The conversation went something like the following:
>Hello? How are you feeling today?
>Hi. Who is this?
>Hi there... how are you today?
>I'm fine. You didn't tell me who you are.
>We should be discussing you, not me.
>We should? Why?
>Let's change focus a bit... Tell me about your family.
>You are impossible to have a conversation with.
>Can you elaborate on that?
>You are killing me.
>Perhaps you would like me to be killing you.
>Ok, you are freaking me out.
>Perhaps you're really talking about yourself?
>What?? That makes no sense.
>How would an answer to that help you?
>END
>Very Interesting.
>QUIT
>Thank you for talking with me.
>#$###$#@@....
The "it" that I talked to was a program called ELIZA. Written in the mid-1960s at MIT's Artificial...