Original: Simon Willison · 08/03/2026
Summary
Simon Willison shares a quote from Joseph Weizenbaum about the impact of short exposures to computer programs on human perception.Key Insights
“What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.” — Joseph Weizenbaum, creator of ELIZA, in 1976
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8th March 2026 What I had not realized is that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people. — Joseph Weizenbaum, creator of ELIZA, in 1976 (via) Posted 8th March 2026 at 2:59 pm Recent articles Can coding agents relicense open source through a “clean room” implementation of code? - 5th March 2026 Something is afoot in the land of Qwen - 4th March 2026 I vibe coded my dream macOS presentation app - 25th February 2026 This is a quotation collected by Simon Willison, posted on 8th March 2026. computer-history 15 internet-archive 16 ai 1896 ai-ethics 276Related Articles
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Originally published at https://simonwillison.net/2026/Mar/8/joseph-weizenbaum/#atom-everything.