Except it WAS intended as a chatbot... as a tool "for research into human-machine conversation and the important cognitive processes of interpretation and misinterpretation".<p>It's like saying the guy who invented the screwdriver didn't invent it because he was REALLY just trying to build a cabinet. The reason a tool was invented does not mean the tool isn't what the tool is.
Jeff is a HN user and his connection to ELIZA is pretty interesting. Many of the ELIZA chat bot clones were based on a version he wrote as a kid, that was published.<p>He and a group of researchers put effort into digging up the history of original implementation.<p>Interesting person!
Classic chatbots:<p><a href="https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/ai-repository/ai/areas/classics/0.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/ai-repository/ai/areas...</a><p>Splotch it's offensive but fun.<p>Azile might run under Executor (the forked one at GitHub).