The Man Who Built ELIZA Then Turned Against AI

Tom Holloway's new play 'Eliza' dramatizes the origin story of AI anxiety. It heads to Melbourne Theatre Company in September 2026.

Joseph Weizenbaum built ELIZA at MIT in the 1960s. The program used simple pattern matching to simulate a psychotherapist. People started pouring their hearts out to it.

He freaked out.

The play gets uncomfortable fast. Weizenbaum reportedly fed personal details from his secretary Becky's private life into the program to train it. That decision, and how eagerly people embraced ELIZA as a confidant, pushed Weizenbaum toward becoming one of AI's earliest critics. He spent the rest of his career arguing that humans were dangerously quick to trust machines with emotional and moral decisions.

Dan Spielman plays Weizenbaum, with Manali Datar as Becky and Paige Rattray directing. Developed through MTC's NEXT STAGE Writers' Program and originally commissioned by Sydney Theatre Company, it runs September 28 through October 31 at Southbank Theatre.

Weizenbaum made his case in his 1976 book 'Computer Power and Human Reason.' The questions he raised about outsourcing judgment to machines haven't exactly gone away.