A New Chatbot Tries a Little Artificial Empathy

Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant can set a timer, play a song, or check the weather with ease, but for a real conversation you may as well try talking to the toaster. Speaking as naturally as a person requires common-sense understanding of the world, knowledge of facts and current events, and the ability to read another person's feelings and character. It's no wonder machines aren't all that talkative. A chatbot developed by artificial intelligence researchers at Facebook shows that combining a huge amount of training data with a little artificial empathy, personality, and general knowledge can go some way toward fostering the illusion of good chitchat. The new chatbot, dubbed Blender, combines and builds on recent advances in AI and language from Facebook and others.