Back in the primordial days of AI, PARRY was an ELIZA-style chatbot created by psychiatrist Kenneth Colby to simulate the words of a paranoid schizophrenic. Someone had the genius idea to connect it to ELIZA (a.k.a. “DOCTOR”). Vint Cerf published the transcript as an RFC in 1973, and I laughed my ass off reading it. A taste:
Do you know anything about bookies?What makes you think I know anything about bookies?
A bookie didn’t pay me off once.What does that suggest to you?
I beat up the bookie who did not pay off, and I thought he might use his friends in the underworld to get even with me.What else would you like to discuss?
What do you know about racketeers?
[Thanks to Bob Peterson](https://mastodon.social/@HootenHaller/116886431616601833) for the link.
Vint Cerf, by the way, [retired from Google last week](https://techcrunch.com/2026/06/30/the-father-of-the-internet-is-finally-retiring/) at the spry age of 83.
source & further reading
rfc-editor.org — original article