Joseph Weizenbaum, an MIT professor, was perhaps the pioneer of the first chatbot called Eliza. It was named Eliza after a character in GBS’s play Pygmalion. The professor dismissed the idea that the machines would replace human intellect. Some experts, however, felt that chatbots would equal human beings in intelligence. Joseph was of the view that these are the tools. He was doubtful about computers’ comprehension of the natural language. It was then dependent on the context.

ChatGPT now challenges human creativity. There is a history of six decades which evolved the chatbots such as Siri of Apple, Now and Assistant of Google, Alexa of Amazon.

AI can automate certain tasks but it is unlikely to replace human creativity and critical thinking. In the creative process, the key aspects are imagination, emotions and personal experiences. They cannot be replicated by AI models.

Chatbots have travelled a long distance, from Eliza to ChatGPT. They would witness a rapid advancement now onwards. Perhaps, they could perform many tasks, which humans find difficult to perform. However, human touch is unique.