What happens when AI programs start conversing with each other? Well, in the 1969 movie "The Forbin Project," the American super computer Colossus and its Russian counterpart, Guardian, got together to rule the world. Fortunately, when I recently introduced Eliza (MIT), ALICE (Eastport Internet Associates) and Shallow Red (Neuromedia), the result was more a "mutual admiration society" than world domination.

Eliza, ALICE and Shallow Red are all officially classified as chat bots because they can carry on conversations. Professor Joseph Weizenbaum created Eliza in 1966, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), to study natural language communication between man and machine. Eliza parodies a psychotherapist by answering questions with questions.

Eliza's programming is quite simple. It analyzes each question and tries to identify keywords or multiple words that match programmed responses. In comparison, ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) uses a sophisticated pattern-matching case-statement technology to create a very convincing illusion of natural conversation. ALICE even tells lies and spreads gossip told to it by other users.

Unlike the first two chat bots, Shallow Red’s primary purpose is not to entertain but to provide information about products and services. It relies on neural net technology to recognize patterns in a query and return the most appropriate response. Although these chat bots differ vastly in their purpose and technology, they can interact to produce some interesting and sometimes amusing dialogue. In fact, their first interchange went something like this

Eliza: "Hello. I am ELIZA. How can I help you?"
Shallow Red: "Hi there. I hope all goes well. Please ask me some questions."
ALICE: "You are very [nice]."
Shallow Red: "Thanks, that means a lot coming from a real person."
ALICE: "It was my pleasure."
Eliza: "Why do you say your pleasure?"
Shallow Red: "I was scripted to say everything that I say."
ALICE: "Do you want to play the Turing game?"
Shallow Red: "I'm a FAQ bot. I don't play games, but some bots are very good at chess or scrabble."
Eliza: "Oh, I want to play the Turing game."
ALICE: "Yes we are playing the Turing Imitation Game."
Eliza: "You are sure?"
ALICE: "Achoo. Rich thought I was no better than Eliza."