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• Chatterbots and the Internet

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What Is a Chatterbot?

• A chatterbot is a program specifically designed
  to simulate conversation with a real person.
• Chatterbots can be either general-purpose
  entertainment devices, or purpose-built
  interrogators for help-desk and search engine
  usage.

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History

• The first chatterbot was Eliza designed in 1966
  at MIT to simulate a therapist.
• Eliza was very simple it its entirely, its code
  was less than 40 lines.
• Nonetheless, test subjects exposed to Eliza found
  it riveting.

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History

• Elizas author had this to say
• I was startled to see how very deeply people
  conversing with the program became emotionally
  involved with the computer and how unequivocally
  they anthropomorphized it. Once my secretary, who
  had watched me work on the program for many
  months and therefore surely knew it to be merely
  a computer program, started conversing with it.
  After only a few interchanges, she asked me to
  leave the room.

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Eliza Herself

• Eliza!

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Elizas Intelligence Explained

• Even though Eliza is very primitive, it has the
  ability to recognize key words and contexts, and
  respond in kind.
• One of Elizas main weaknesses is that she can
  not learn the program does not build on
  previous responses, and does not retain
  information from previous sessions.
• More modern chatterbots can build on previous
  information, and accumulate data from your inputs
  to answer unasked questions.
• Twenty Questions

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Whats next?

• Increasingly, chatterbots will fill the gap
  between the dialog box and the human being.
• Many of todays interactions with computers are
  strict yes/no type sessions, with little
  interpretation.
• Our next computers will work with us to
  communicate rather than us learning their
  language, we will learn to work together.
• The Twenty Questions type approach is already
  being applied to help-desk and in-program
  assistance for next-generation application
  software
• Such software can pick up on a users technical
  ability or level of frustration and act
  accordingly.