A chat bot is a computer program that can converse with humans, sometimes even convincing them it’s human. They have practical uses in business and AI development, but can also be used for frivolous or nefarious purposes. The first chat bot was ELIZA in the 1960s.
A chat bot is a computer program designed to engage in conversation with a human partner. This type of software is intended to convince his interlocutors that he is an active participant in the conversation and that real meaning is being exchanged. Some types of chat bots are even designed to make users think they are having a conversation with a living human being. This type of program, while often employed purely for novelty value, is useful in psychology research, the development of artificial intelligence, and the management of some types of business interaction with customers.
The first program to function as a chat bot was ELIZA, a search tool developed in the 1960s. ELIZA was designed to simply parse comments from a human user and then respond with questions based on a few words in the user input. Users found this fascinating and engaged in surprisingly long conversations with ELIZA, which they often interpreted as meaningful, thanks to the human predilection for finding meaning in conversation.
A modern chat bot has access to many times more computing power than such initial programs. As a result, modern chat bots can often fool users for a period of time, and many do well in passing the Turing test. This test features a conversation between a human and a computer program. A program whose output cannot be distinguished from human conversation can be considered passed the test.
Many chat bots are designed for frivolous or nefarious purposes. Some users just create bots and put them on chat or messenger sites as a joke. Others use these bots to distribute unwanted advertising or to harass users, although such advertising bots are relatively easy to exclude, as their constant dissemination of advertising information breaks their coverage.
In 2011, however, this type of program has served more practical purposes in recent years. When contacting many large corporate or government entities, a human is often greeted by an automated chat bot. These bots are now capable of performing many tasks once handled by human operators and are routinely used to collect user information, route calls to the appropriate department, or handle simple tasks without any human intervention.
Chat bots are also used in the development of artificial intelligence. Any successful AI must be able to parse natural language and formulate appropriate responses. These are tasks for which a chat bot has already been designed.
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