Chatterbot
Encyclopedia
A chatter robot, chatterbot, chatbot, or chat bot is a computer program
designed to simulate an intelligent conversation
with one or more human users via auditory or textual methods, primarily for engaging in small talk
. The primary aim of such simulation has been to fool the user into thinking that the program's output has been produced by a human (the Turing test
). Programs playing this role are sometimes referred to as Artificial Conversational Entities, talk bots or chatterboxes. In addition, however, chatterbots are often integrated into dialog system
s for various practical purposes such as online help, personalised service, or information acquisition. Some chatterbots use sophisticated natural language processing
systems, but many simply scan for keywords within the input and pull a reply with the most matching keywords, or the most similar wording pattern, from a textual database
.
The term "ChatterBot" was originally coined by Michael Mauldin
(Creator of the first Verbot
, Julia) in 1994 to describe these conversational programs.
", which proposed what is now called the Turing test
as a criterion of intelligence. This criterion depends on the ability of a computer program to impersonate a human in a real-time written conversation with a human judge, sufficiently well that the judge is unable to distinguish reliably—on the basis of the conversational content alone—between the program and a real human. The notoriety of Turing's proposed test stimulated great interest in Joseph Weizenbaum's program ELIZA
, published in 1966, which seemed to be able to fool users into believing that they were conversing with a real human. However Weizenbaum himself did not claim that ELIZA was genuinely intelligent, and the Introduction to his paper presented it more as a debunking exercise:
ELIZA's key method of operation (copied by chatbot designers ever since) involves the recognition of cue words or phrases in the input, and the output of corresponding pre-prepared or pre-programmed responses that can move the conversation forward in an apparently meaningful way (e.g. by responding to any input that contains the word 'MOTHER' with 'TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR FAMILY'). Thus an illusion of understanding is generated, even though the processing involved has been merely superficial. ELIZA showed that such an illusion is surprisingly easy to generate, because human judges are so ready to give the benefit of the doubt when conversational responses are capable of being interpreted as "intelligent". Thus the key technique here—which characterises a program as a chatbot rather than as a serious natural language processing system—is the production of responses that are sufficiently vague and non-specific that they can be understood as "intelligent" in a wide range of conversational contexts. The emphasis is typically on vagueness and unclarity, rather than any conveying of genuine information.
Interface designers have come to appreciate that humans' readiness to interpret computer output as genuinely conversational—even when it is actually based on rather simple pattern-matching—can be exploited for useful purposes. Most people prefer to engage with programs that are human-like, and this gives chatbot-style techniques a potentially useful role in interactive systems that need to elicit information from users, as long as that information is relatively straightforward and falls into predictable categories. Thus, for example, online help systems can usefully employ chatbot techniques to identify the area of help that users require, potentially providing a "friendlier" interface than a more formal search or menu system. This sort of usage holds the prospect of moving chatbot technology from Weizenbaum's "shelf ... reserved for curios" to that marked "genuinely useful computational methods".
ActiveBuddy was a company that created conversation-based interactive agents originally distributed via instant messaging platforms. Founded in 2000, the company was the brainchild of Robert Hoffer and Timothy Kay. The idea for interactive agents came from Hoffer’s vision to add functionality to increasingly popular instant messaging services. The original implementation took shape as a word-based adventure game but quickly grew to include a wide range of database applications including access to news, weather, stock information, movie times, yellow pages listings, and detailed sports data, as well as a variety of tools (calculators, translator, etc.). These various applications were bundled into a single entity and launched as SmarterChild in 2001. SmarterChild acted as a showcase for the quick data access and possibilities for fun conversation that the company planned to turn into customized, niche specific products.
The rapid success of SmarterChild, over 13 million users, led to targeted promotional products for Radiohead, Austin Powers, The Sporting News, and others. ActiveBuddy sought to strengthen its hold on the interactive agent market for the future by filing for, and receiving, a patent on their creation in 2002.The company also released the BuddyScript SDK, a free developer kit that allow programmers to design and launch their own interactive agents using ActiveBuddy’s proprietary scripting language, in 2002. The company subsequently changed its name from ActiveBuddy to Conversagent in 2003, and then again to Colloquis in 2006. Colloquis was later purchased by Microsoft in October of 2006.
(1966) and PARRY
(1972). More recent notable programs include A.L.I.C.E.
, Jabberwacky
and D.U.D.E (Agence Nationale de la Recherche and CNRS 2006). While ELIZA and PARRY were used exclusively to simulate typed conversation, many chatterbots now include functional features such as games and web searching abilities. In 1984, a book called The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed was published, allegedly written by the chatbot Racter
(though the program as released would not have been capable of doing so).
One pertinent field of AI research is natural language processing
. Usually, weak AI
fields employ specialized software or programming languages created specifically for the narrow function required. For example, A.L.I.C.E. utilises a programming language called AIML
, which is specific to its function as a conversational agent, and has since been adopted by various other developers of, so called, Alicebots. Nevertheless, A.L.I.C.E. is still purely based on pattern matching
techniques without any reasoning capabilities, the same technique ELIZA was using back in 1966. This is not strong AI
, which would require sapience and logical reasoning abilities.
Jabberwacky learns new responses and context based on real-time user interactions, rather than being driven from a static database. Some more recent chatterbots also combine real-time learning with evolutionary algorithm
s that optimise their ability to communicate based on each conversation held, with one notable example being Kyle, winner of the 2009 Leodis AI Award. Still, there is currently no general purpose conversational artificial intelligence, and some software developers focus on the practical aspect, information retrieval
.
Alan and HAL is Ai Research is a leading artificial intelligence research project. we showcase the state of the art in pattern-matching conversational machines, demonstrated by Alan, and in reinforcement learning algorithms, demonstrated by HAL..
s of, for example, automated online assistants, giving them the ability of, for example, small talking
or engaging in casual conversations unrelated to the scopes of their primary expert system
s.
Large companies such as Lloyds Banking Group
, Royal Bank of Scotland
, Renault
and Citroën
are now using automated online assistants instead of call centres with humans to provide a first point of contact.
, Windows Live Messenger
, AOL Instant Messenger
and other instant messaging
protocols. There has also been a published report of a chatterbot used in a fake personal ad on a dating service's website.
and The Chatterbox Challenge.
Computer program
A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...
designed to simulate an intelligent conversation
Conversation
Conversation is a form of interactive, spontaneous communication between two or more people who are following rules of etiquette.Conversation analysis is a branch of sociology which studies the structure and organization of human interaction, with a more specific focus on conversational...
with one or more human users via auditory or textual methods, primarily for engaging in small talk
Small talk (phatic communication)
Small talk is an informal type of discourse that does not cover any functional topics of conversation or any transactions that need to be addressed....
. The primary aim of such simulation has been to fool the user into thinking that the program's output has been produced by a human (the Turing test
Turing test
The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour. In Turing's original illustrative example, a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with a human and a machine designed to generate performance indistinguishable from that of a human being. All...
). Programs playing this role are sometimes referred to as Artificial Conversational Entities, talk bots or chatterboxes. In addition, however, chatterbots are often integrated into dialog system
Dialog system
A dialog system or conversational agent is a computer system intended to converse with a human, with a coherent structure. Dialog systems have employed text, speech, graphics, haptics, gestures and other modes for communication on both the input and output channel.What does and does not constitute...
s for various practical purposes such as online help, personalised service, or information acquisition. Some chatterbots use sophisticated natural language processing
Natural language processing
Natural language processing is a field of computer science and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human languages; it began as a branch of artificial intelligence....
systems, but many simply scan for keywords within the input and pull a reply with the most matching keywords, or the most similar wording pattern, from a textual database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
.
The term "ChatterBot" was originally coined by Michael Mauldin
Michael Loren Mauldin
Michael Loren "Fuzzy" Mauldin is the founder and chief scientist of the Lycos Internet search engine company. He developed the Lycos Search Engine while working on the Informedia Digital Library project at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also, Director of Conversive, Inc...
(Creator of the first Verbot
Verbot
The Verbot is a popular chatterbot program and Artificial Intelligence Software Development Kit for the Windows platform and for the web.- Early Beginning :Virtual Personalities, Inc. traces its technology back to Dr...
, Julia) in 1994 to describe these conversational programs.
Background
In 1950, Alan Turing published his famous article "Computing Machinery and IntelligenceComputing machinery and intelligence
Computing Machinery and Intelligence, written by Alan Turing and published in 1950 in Mind, is a seminal paper on the topic of artificial intelligence in which the concept of what is now known as the Turing test was introduced to a wide audience....
", which proposed what is now called the Turing test
Turing test
The Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour. In Turing's original illustrative example, a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with a human and a machine designed to generate performance indistinguishable from that of a human being. All...
as a criterion of intelligence. This criterion depends on the ability of a computer program to impersonate a human in a real-time written conversation with a human judge, sufficiently well that the judge is unable to distinguish reliably—on the basis of the conversational content alone—between the program and a real human. The notoriety of Turing's proposed test stimulated great interest in Joseph Weizenbaum's program ELIZA
ELIZA
ELIZA is a computer program and an early example of primitive natural language processing. ELIZA operated by processing users' responses to scripts, the most famous of which was DOCTOR, a simulation of a Rogerian psychotherapist. Using almost no information about human thought or emotion, DOCTOR...
, published in 1966, which seemed to be able to fool users into believing that they were conversing with a real human. However Weizenbaum himself did not claim that ELIZA was genuinely intelligent, and the Introduction to his paper presented it more as a debunking exercise:
[In] artificial intelligence ... machines are made to behave in wondrous ways, often sufficient to dazzle even the most experienced observer. But once a particular program is unmasked, once its inner workings are explained ... its magic crumbles away; it stands revealed as a mere collection of procedures ... The observer says to himself "I could have written that". With that thought he moves the program in question from the shelf marked "intelligent", to that reserved for curios ... The object of this paper is to cause just such a re-evaluation of the program about to be "explained". Few programs ever needed it more.
ELIZA's key method of operation (copied by chatbot designers ever since) involves the recognition of cue words or phrases in the input, and the output of corresponding pre-prepared or pre-programmed responses that can move the conversation forward in an apparently meaningful way (e.g. by responding to any input that contains the word 'MOTHER' with 'TELL ME MORE ABOUT YOUR FAMILY'). Thus an illusion of understanding is generated, even though the processing involved has been merely superficial. ELIZA showed that such an illusion is surprisingly easy to generate, because human judges are so ready to give the benefit of the doubt when conversational responses are capable of being interpreted as "intelligent". Thus the key technique here—which characterises a program as a chatbot rather than as a serious natural language processing system—is the production of responses that are sufficiently vague and non-specific that they can be understood as "intelligent" in a wide range of conversational contexts. The emphasis is typically on vagueness and unclarity, rather than any conveying of genuine information.
Interface designers have come to appreciate that humans' readiness to interpret computer output as genuinely conversational—even when it is actually based on rather simple pattern-matching—can be exploited for useful purposes. Most people prefer to engage with programs that are human-like, and this gives chatbot-style techniques a potentially useful role in interactive systems that need to elicit information from users, as long as that information is relatively straightforward and falls into predictable categories. Thus, for example, online help systems can usefully employ chatbot techniques to identify the area of help that users require, potentially providing a "friendlier" interface than a more formal search or menu system. This sort of usage holds the prospect of moving chatbot technology from Weizenbaum's "shelf ... reserved for curios" to that marked "genuinely useful computational methods".
ActiveBuddy was a company that created conversation-based interactive agents originally distributed via instant messaging platforms. Founded in 2000, the company was the brainchild of Robert Hoffer and Timothy Kay. The idea for interactive agents came from Hoffer’s vision to add functionality to increasingly popular instant messaging services. The original implementation took shape as a word-based adventure game but quickly grew to include a wide range of database applications including access to news, weather, stock information, movie times, yellow pages listings, and detailed sports data, as well as a variety of tools (calculators, translator, etc.). These various applications were bundled into a single entity and launched as SmarterChild in 2001. SmarterChild acted as a showcase for the quick data access and possibilities for fun conversation that the company planned to turn into customized, niche specific products.
The rapid success of SmarterChild, over 13 million users, led to targeted promotional products for Radiohead, Austin Powers, The Sporting News, and others. ActiveBuddy sought to strengthen its hold on the interactive agent market for the future by filing for, and receiving, a patent on their creation in 2002.The company also released the BuddyScript SDK, a free developer kit that allow programmers to design and launch their own interactive agents using ActiveBuddy’s proprietary scripting language, in 2002. The company subsequently changed its name from ActiveBuddy to Conversagent in 2003, and then again to Colloquis in 2006. Colloquis was later purchased by Microsoft in October of 2006.
Development
The classic historic early chatterbots are ELIZAELIZA
ELIZA is a computer program and an early example of primitive natural language processing. ELIZA operated by processing users' responses to scripts, the most famous of which was DOCTOR, a simulation of a Rogerian psychotherapist. Using almost no information about human thought or emotion, DOCTOR...
(1966) and PARRY
PARRY
PARRY is, besides ELIZA, the other famous early chatterbot.-History:PARRY was written in 1972 by psychiatrist Kenneth Colby, then at Stanford University. While ELIZA was a tongue-in-cheek simulation of a Rogerian therapist, PARRY attempted to simulate a paranoid schizophrenic...
(1972). More recent notable programs include A.L.I.C.E.
Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity
A.L.I.C.E. , also referred to as Alicebot, or simply Alice, is a natural language processing chatterbot—a program that engages in a conversation with a human by applying some heuristical pattern matching rules to the human's input, and in its online form it also relies on a hidden third person...
, Jabberwacky
Jabberwacky
Jabberwacky is a chatterbot created by British programmer Rollo Carpenter. Its stated aim is to "simulate natural human chat in an interesting, entertaining and humorous manner"...
and D.U.D.E (Agence Nationale de la Recherche and CNRS 2006). While ELIZA and PARRY were used exclusively to simulate typed conversation, many chatterbots now include functional features such as games and web searching abilities. In 1984, a book called The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed was published, allegedly written by the chatbot Racter
Racter
Racter was an artificial intelligence computer program that generated English language prose at random.-History:The name of the program is short for raconteur. The sophistication claimed for the program was likely exaggerated, as could be seen by investigation of the template system of text...
(though the program as released would not have been capable of doing so).
One pertinent field of AI research is natural language processing
Natural language processing
Natural language processing is a field of computer science and linguistics concerned with the interactions between computers and human languages; it began as a branch of artificial intelligence....
. Usually, weak AI
Weak AI
Weak AI is used to refer to:* An artificial intelligence system which is not intended to match or exceed the capabilities of human beings, as opposed to strong AI, which is. Also known as applied AI or narrow AI...
fields employ specialized software or programming languages created specifically for the narrow function required. For example, A.L.I.C.E. utilises a programming language called AIML
AIML
AIML, or Artificial Intelligence Markup Language, is an XML dialect for creating natural language software agents.- Background :The XML dialect called AIML was developed by Richard Wallace and a worldwide free software community between the years of 1995 and 2002...
, which is specific to its function as a conversational agent, and has since been adopted by various other developers of, so called, Alicebots. Nevertheless, A.L.I.C.E. is still purely based on pattern matching
Pattern matching
In computer science, pattern matching is the act of checking some sequence of tokens for the presence of the constituents of some pattern. In contrast to pattern recognition, the match usually has to be exact. The patterns generally have the form of either sequences or tree structures...
techniques without any reasoning capabilities, the same technique ELIZA was using back in 1966. This is not strong AI
Strong AI
Strong AI is artificial intelligence that matches or exceeds human intelligence — the intelligence of a machine that can successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. It is a primary goal of artificial intelligence research and an important topic for science fiction writers and...
, which would require sapience and logical reasoning abilities.
Jabberwacky learns new responses and context based on real-time user interactions, rather than being driven from a static database. Some more recent chatterbots also combine real-time learning with evolutionary algorithm
Evolutionary algorithm
In artificial intelligence, an evolutionary algorithm is a subset of evolutionary computation, a generic population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm. An EA uses some mechanisms inspired by biological evolution: reproduction, mutation, recombination, and selection...
s that optimise their ability to communicate based on each conversation held, with one notable example being Kyle, winner of the 2009 Leodis AI Award. Still, there is currently no general purpose conversational artificial intelligence, and some software developers focus on the practical aspect, information retrieval
Information retrieval
Information retrieval is the area of study concerned with searching for documents, for information within documents, and for metadata about documents, as well as that of searching structured storage, relational databases, and the World Wide Web...
.
Alan and HAL is Ai Research is a leading artificial intelligence research project. we showcase the state of the art in pattern-matching conversational machines, demonstrated by Alan, and in reinforcement learning algorithms, demonstrated by HAL..
Usage in dialog systems
Chatterbots are often integrated into the dialog systemDialog system
A dialog system or conversational agent is a computer system intended to converse with a human, with a coherent structure. Dialog systems have employed text, speech, graphics, haptics, gestures and other modes for communication on both the input and output channel.What does and does not constitute...
s of, for example, automated online assistants, giving them the ability of, for example, small talking
Small talk (phatic communication)
Small talk is an informal type of discourse that does not cover any functional topics of conversation or any transactions that need to be addressed....
or engaging in casual conversations unrelated to the scopes of their primary expert system
Expert system
In artificial intelligence, an expert system is a computer system that emulates the decision-making ability of a human expert. Expert systems are designed to solve complex problems by reasoning about knowledge, like an expert, and not by following the procedure of a developer as is the case in...
s.
Large companies such as Lloyds Banking Group
Lloyds Banking Group
Lloyds Banking Group plc is a major British financial institution, formed through the acquisition of HBOS by Lloyds TSB in 2009. As at February 2010, HM Treasury held a 41% shareholding through UK Financial Investments Limited . The Group headquarters is located at 25 Gresham Street in London, with...
, Royal Bank of Scotland
Royal Bank of Scotland
The Royal Bank of Scotland Group is a British banking and insurance holding company in which the UK Government holds an 84% stake. This stake is held and managed through UK Financial Investments Limited, whose voting rights are limited to 75% in order for the bank to retain its listing on the...
, Renault
Renault
Renault S.A. is a French automaker producing cars, vans, and in the past, autorail vehicles, trucks, tractors, vans and also buses/coaches. Its alliance with Nissan makes it the world's third largest automaker...
and Citroën
Citroën
Citroën is a major French automobile manufacturer, part of the PSA Peugeot Citroën group.Founded in 1919 by French industrialist André-Gustave Citroën , Citroën was the first mass-production car company outside the USA and pioneered the modern concept of creating a sales and services network that...
are now using automated online assistants instead of call centres with humans to provide a first point of contact.
Malicious use
Malicious chatterbots are frequently used to fill chat rooms with spam and advertising, or to entice people into revealing personal information, such as bank account numbers. They are commonly found on Yahoo! MessengerYahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger is an advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!...
, Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...
, AOL Instant Messenger
AOL Instant Messenger
AOL Instant Messenger is an instant messaging and presence computer program which uses the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. It was released by AOL in May 1997...
and other instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
protocols. There has also been a published report of a chatterbot used in a fake personal ad on a dating service's website.
Competitions
Chatterbot competitions focus on the Turing test or more specific goals. Two such annual contests are the Loebner PrizeLoebner prize
The Loebner Prize is an annual competition in artificial intelligence that awards prizes to the chatterbot considered by the judges to be the most human-like. The format of the competition is that of a standard Turing test. In each round, a human judge simultaneously holds textual conversations...
and The Chatterbox Challenge.
See also
- CleverbotCleverbotCleverbot is a web application that uses an artificial intelligence algorithm to hold conversations with humans. It was created in 1988 by AI scientist Rollo Carpenter, who also created Jabberwacky, a similar web application. In the first decade of its existence, Cleverbot held several thousand...
- Dialog systemDialog systemA dialog system or conversational agent is a computer system intended to converse with a human, with a coherent structure. Dialog systems have employed text, speech, graphics, haptics, gestures and other modes for communication on both the input and output channel.What does and does not constitute...
- Interactive online charactersInteractive online charactersAn automated online assistant is a program that uses artificial intelligence to provide customer service or other assistance on a website. Such an assistant may basically consist of a dialog system, an avatar, as well an expert system to provide specific expertise to the user.Automated online...
- List of chatterbots
- Loebner prizeLoebner prizeThe Loebner Prize is an annual competition in artificial intelligence that awards prizes to the chatterbot considered by the judges to be the most human-like. The format of the competition is that of a standard Turing test. In each round, a human judge simultaneously holds textual conversations...
- Markov chainMarkov chainA Markov chain, named after Andrey Markov, is a mathematical system that undergoes transitions from one state to another, between a finite or countable number of possible states. It is a random process characterized as memoryless: the next state depends only on the current state and not on the...
- Turing testTuring testThe Turing test is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour. In Turing's original illustrative example, a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with a human and a machine designed to generate performance indistinguishable from that of a human being. All...