The Chatbots are Coming!

Chatbots today pop up at websites in smartphone apps; the same technology helps robots, smart speakers, and other machines operate in a more human-like way. The idea of conversing with a computer is nothing new. As far back as the 1960s, a natural language processing program named Eliza matched typed remarks with scripted responses. The software identified key words and responded with phrases that made it seem as though the computer was responding conversationally. Since then, such conversational interfaces--also known as virtual agents--have advanced remarkably due to greater processing power, cloud computing, and ongoing improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.