On January 21, 1973, Vinton Cerf published Internet RFC 439, titled “PARRY Encounters the Doctor.” It records a conversation, dated September 18, 1972, between two of the earliest chatbots: PARRY, Kenneth Colby’s simulation of a paranoid patient, and the Doctor, an implementation of Joseph Weizenbaum’s ELIZA therapist program. The two programs were connected over the ARPANET, the forerunner of the modern internet.
The transcript opens with the Doctor inviting input - “Tell me your problems. Please terminate input with a period or a question mark.” - and PARRY replying “People get on my nerves sometimes.” The exchange then loops through PARRY’s fixations on gambling, racketeers, and the mob while the Doctor keeps redirecting with therapist-style questions.
The document is a rare artifact: a primary record of machine-to-machine dialogue from the dawn of both AI chatbots and the internet, formally archived in the same RFC series that defines internet protocols.