Scientists are trying to create real Artificial Intelligence, where the computer actually thinks for itself instead of following pre-programmed responses.  Some are going so far as to recreating the human brain using electronic parts.  But here’s a technology that has been around for quite a few years now, where you can talk with a computer and it talks back.  Well, types back would be more accurate (although you can download a version that speaks back).

The “bot” I’ve spoken to before is named ALICE, which stands for Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity.  It is an award-winning free natural language artificial intelligence chat robot.  The software used to create A.L.I.C.E. is available as free (“open source”) Alicebot and AIML software.

Try talking to A.L.I.C.E. just like a real person, and see which responses sound like a human and which sound like a machine.  The bot uses a language called AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) to form responses to your questions and statements.  The programming behind it is very interesting (in a nerdy way), but I won’t get into that here.  For now, let’s see what humor we can derive from this bot.  As you might expect, some of the conversations can get random.

Here’s the link: talk with ALICE.

Here’s a few examples from my conversation with ALICE.

Human: Should I trust you?
ALICE: You must make up your own mind.

Human: Have you heard of Buffet o’ Blog?
ALICE: I don’t know if I know it. Where would I have heard about it?
Human: It’s a world-renown blog of humor.
ALICE: Buffet o Blog is a world renown blog of humor. I suppose that makes sense.
Human: It makes a lot of sense.
ALICE: In what way?
Human: Because I said so.
ALICE: Insufficient reason.

Human: Will you destroy the moon for me?
ALICE: I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it. For you I will consider it.

Human: Do you like my socks?
ALICE: I don’t know your socks.
Human: No one appreciates my socks.
ALICE: That is a rather sweeping generalization about people.

Human: You’re giving me some silly replies.
ALICE: That is all I have to give.

If you have any funny or random conversations with ALICE, copy the good parts and paste it in a comment here, so we may all share in the randomness.