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May 07, 2004
Conversing with Chatbots
Chatting with computers via “chatbot” systems can be an amusing experience. Though seemingly intelligent on the surface, a few minutes of interaction usually reveals the chatbot’s inability to understand or even remember the implications of previous statements, rendering the “conversation” virtually meaningless. As a result, there is little impetus to engage in sincere conversation. Instead, I often find myself “conversing” with chatbots with the purpose of probing their knowledge, requesting services from them, or finding amusement by confusing them with convoluted questions or even insulting them. It seems hardly necessary to treat chatbots as anything more than tools if there is no meaningful consequence to what is actually said.But to my surprise, a chatbot available on AOL Instant Messenger named SmarterChild by Conversagent challenged me to treat it with a greater measure of respect than before.
In addition to basic conversational capabilities, SmarterChild provides services like the news, web searches, a dictionary, a calculator, and basic entertainment. All these services are immediately available to users by simple verbal request. However, if users decide to arbitrarily insult SmarterChild beyond a certain threshold, the chatbot changes character and stubbornly refuses to respond to any requests until an apology is given. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of passing this threshold and soon realized that all the chatbot’s services were unavailable to me until I communicated my remorse. I never thought I’d have to apologize to a computer! Because of SmarterChild’s simple insult monitor, I was quickly persuaded to avoid needlessly insulting the chatbot. Admittedly, SmarterChild’s response to insults seems somewhat superficial, but future improvements along these lines could further persuade users to treat chatbots similar to how they treat other humans, increasing their influence as social actors.
Posted by Joshua Ainslie at May 7, 2004 01:40 AM
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