Pamela Fox chief technology officer with Woebot, hangs a picture frame that contains the logo for the start-up as others work in San Francisco on July 28, 2017. Woebot primarily consists of psychologists and academics that has created a chatbot that offers users cognitive behavioral therapy. The bot is named Woebot, and users chat with it each day to get in touch with their own feelings and emotions, and do exercises that help alleviate stress, anxiety, depression. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/TNS)
Fifty years ago, an MIT professor created a chatbot that simulated a psychotherapist.
Named Eliza, it was able to trick some people into believing it was human. But it didn't understand what it was told, nor did it have the capacity to learn on its own. The only test it had to pass was: Could it fool humans?
