Meanings
ELIZA effect1
Eliza effect2
- alternativeAlternative form of ELIZA effect.
The much more sophisticated and personable chatbots of today are the “Eliza effect on steroids,” [Sherry] Turkle said.
2025 December 19, Kashmir Hill, quoting Sherry Turkle, “Why Do A.I. Chatbots Use ‘I’?”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 Dec 20251 more example
This interpretation of the Eliza effect recalls wider responses that people have to digital technologies, if not toward technology as a whole.
2021, Simone Natale, Deceitful Media: Artificial Intelligence and Social Life after the Turing Test, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 64
Origin
Coined by American social scientist and psychologist Sherry Turkle, named after ELIZA, a 1966 chatbot developed by MIT computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum. The program was named after the character Eliza Doolittle in the play Pygmalion (1913).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
ELIZA effect. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ELIZA%20effect
“ELIZA effect.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ELIZA%20effect. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “ELIZA effect,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/ELIZA%20effect.
Source: ELIZA effect on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.