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The Secret Agent ManThe Future of Chat botsAlan Turing predicted that by the year 2000 AI programs will be advanced enough to fool the average person into believing they were talking to another human for around five minutes. Although the science of artificial intelligence, born in Cold War laboratories, failed to meet early expectations, due more to lack of fast and cheap computers than bankrupt ideas, it now appears poised to make good on Turing’s prediction in the latest generation of chat bots. Beyond the AI, and entertainment value of chat bots, many Web sites are now starting to realize the value of these talkative autonomous agents for some very real world and practical applications. For example, Neuromedia’s Shallow Red (http://www.neurostudios.com/html/ShallowRedFrame.htm) provides product information and, thus, reduces the demand for human support services. FringeWare is investigating ways to apply their chat bots to reduce information overload by having them catalogue the Web. The results indicate that this approach better organizes information than a simple keyword searches from engines like AltaVista and is much less labor-intensive than maintaining an ontology like Yahoo! Finally, with simplified chat bot development tools, like NeuroStudio, writers, artists, and musicians are beginning to get involved in creating their own virtual personalities online. Abbott Systems (http://www.abbottsys.com/atchat.html) has launched DonLive, a chat bot that simulates a conversation with Don Crabb (don@abbottsys.com), a popular computer columnist and commentator for dozens of magazines, newspapers, radio, and TV stations. Not withstanding the threatening conspiracy I have uncovered at The Forbin Project, these developments, along with advances in natural language processing, speech synthesis, and voice recognition, promise to make 1998 the year of the chat bot. To learn more about chat bots, checkout some of the following sources on the Web: BotSpot at /search/s-chat.htm |
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