Chatterbots

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A type of software designed to simulate conversations by mimicking human dialogue through programmed responses
2. Automated programs that engage in dialogue with users, often through messaging interfaces, by generating text-based responses
3. Artificial intelligence systems that communicate with individuals by providing answers and engaging in discussions, often for customer service or entertainment purposes

Etymology: Michael Mauldin, the computer scientist who founded the Lycos search engine, coined "chatterbot" in 1994 for a paper he presented at the Twelfth AAAI National Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Seattle. The paper, "CHATTERBOTs, TINYMUDs, and the Turing Test," described his entry into the Loebner Prize competition, an annual contest in which judges try to tell a program from a human through typed conversation. The word is a plain blend of "chatter," meaning light, rapid talk, and "-bot," a clipping of "robot." Mauldin's coinage combined the idea of idle chat with the machine that performs it, so the name describes exactly what the program does: it makes conversation rather than reasoning or computing. The plural "chatterbots" is simply the plural of "chatterbot," referring to more than one such program.