A
chatterbot (also known as a
talkbot,
chatbot,
Bot,
chatterbox,
Artificial Conversational Entity) is a
computer program which conducts a
conversation via auditory or textual methods. Such programs are often designed to engage in
small talk with the aim of passing the
Turing test by fooling the conversational partner into thinking that the program is a human. However, chatterbots are also used in
dialog systems for various practical purposes including customer service or information acquisition. Some chatterbots use sophisticated
natural language processing systems, but many simply scan for keywords within the input and pull a reply with the most matching keywords, or the most similar wording pattern, from a textual
database.