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My Conversation Partner - a Chatbot (AI)

A chatbot is a computer programme created with the goal of simulating a conversation (chat). As one might expect, the programmes vary from smarter to less smart. The dumber ones "check" keywords and in some way follow the topic of conversation. The smarter ones, meanwhile, are based on Artificial Intelligence.

We watched Terminator 2007. As always after films of this kind, curiosity arose about whether the websites mentioned in the film actually exist online or are fictional. This time they turned out to be fictional - but while searching for Skynet, somehow I found myself a conversation partner: Alan. Alan is a chatbot... I must say - quite a coherent chatbot :)

About chatbots (chatBots or chatterbots):

According to information from Wikipedia [1], a chatbot is a computer programme created with the goal of simulating a conversation (chat). As one might expect, the programmes vary from smarter to less smart. The dumber ones "check" keywords and in some way follow the topic of conversation. The smarter ones, meanwhile, are based on Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Which chatbot uses what - it's hard to say. Moreover, way back in the 1950s, Alan Turing [2], foreseeing how this kind of thing - machines approaching human intelligence - would eventually spread widely, devised the so-called Turing test. The test is very simple: a real player, a judge and a robot are seated together. If, after the game, the judge cannot unambiguously identify which of the players was the robot, it is considered that the robot possesses intelligence.

A psychological phenomenon in humans has also been identified, called the Eliza effect. It turns out that humans have a tendency to exaggerate a programme's functional capabilities and - consciously or unconsciously - attribute a soul to it. As a result, something more than dry answers is expected. The clever fellows noticed this and created the first bot - the psychotherapist Eliza.

Eliza
http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3

Eliza was originally conceived as a personal psychotherapist. As the authors themselves describe her - Eliza has no intelligence at all, only keyword scanning, scripts and tricks.

Alice
http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f5d922d97e345aa1

Wikipedia claims that Alice is one of the first chatbots based on artificial intelligence. On this page you can chat with various characters, including God :) - http://alicebot.org/igod/.

God turned out to be quite a wise-cracking fellow. Here is a sample from the conversation:

Human: fine
God: Glad to hear it, iinuu. I am running well.
Human: how old are you?
God: I am Infinite of your Earth years.
Human: god?
God: GOD rules.
Human: what time is it?
God: Do I look like a clock?
Sunday, July 06, 2008 01:47:43 PM .

Jabberwacky
http://person.jabberwacky.com/george

Jabberwacky works on somewhat different principles from other AI robots. The system is designed to learn language through contextual conversations with real people. This robot has no fixed conditions or scripts. Jabberwacky saves all information obtained through correspondence with people and tries to use it in subsequent conversations. An enormous database of questions and answers is built up. Theoretically, it could be taught to use a language other than English as well. The downside - it is slow.

Alan
http://www.a-i.com/show_tree.asp?id=115

I still couldn't figure out whether the bot is script-based or artificial-intelligence-based. After the conversation it turned out to be the most coherent. Perhaps also because you could create your own personalised bot, which would address you each time with - Yes, my master! :).