About Chatbots

What is a chatbot? Thats a good question.

Dictionary.com describes it as:

(Or "chatterbot") A bot meant to be able to interact conversationally with humans. A chatbot is either an exercise in AI(Artificial Intelligence) or merely as an interface, as in an infobot.
One of the first and most famous chatterbots (prior to the Web) was Eliza.

Alright. Now we've established what a chatbot or chatterbot is. Basically they analyze the imput a user gives them to come up with a reply. Pretty much like we humans do. The goal with most chatbots is to make them as close to human as possible. A perfect chatbot(which has yet to be created) would be impossible to tell apart from a human. That is what I am trying to do with Freakycowbot, and what other chatbot creators are doing with their bots.

So what's so cool about chatbots? What do you mean!

A chat bot is a computer that talks to you! What could be cooler then that? Now... Let's get into the specifics about bots.

A chatbot like Freakycowbot uses modules to organize replies. A module is a set of AIML(Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) replies grouped togather to perform a specific task. A module can be made for anything from hi and bye statements to a spanish quiz. Because modules can take so long to make, there are some shortcuts that can help out a lot.

Wildcard: A wildcard is used to represent whatever word or phrase the user puts in it's place. ex:

Someone Asks: I * you
Bot Reply: You won't for long

Whatever is said where the star is doesn't matter. It will always respond like that. Another wildcrad feature is to repeat what the user said:

Someone Asks: I * you
Bot Reply: I <star> you too

In that case, whatever is put where the * was is repeated where is put in the reply. Another shortcut is

Random Reply: The random reply feature helps so you don't have to type the same module with a different reply sevral times. It also makes your bot look smarter. ex:

Someone Asks: Hello
Bot Reply: Hi|Hello|How are you?|Who are you?

It will randomely choose one of those replies. The way it helps save time is when you use it like this:

Someone Asks: Hi|Hello|Hows it going|sup|yo
Bot Reply: Hi|Hello|How are you?|Who are you?

That way, whenever someone says any one of those things, it will reply with one of the programmed replies.

To learn more, get resources, and read up on AI and chatbot news go to Chatbothub.com