What a chatterbot!

We survey a few of the Web's coolest chat bots to find out how close they are to replacing real conversation

It all started with Eliza, a program developed by Joseph Weizenbaum of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which made natural conversation possible with a computer.

The artificial intelligence (AI) community got a boost, when a program called Albert won the prize for the world's best chat agent (also called chat bot) in 1999. It's witty one-liners, quirky conversations managed to convince almost 11 per cent of people that it was human. The ALICE Foundation under Dr Richard Wallace, one of the leading lights of the AI community, has been developing several bots over the years. It recently introduced a paid service to chat with a 'superior' bot.

1. Artificial Intelligence - Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence demonstrated by machines, as opposed to the natural intelligence displayed by animals and humans.