Talk to Cleverbot and Joan

On a whim at 11:56pm, I began to take a look around the internet for something to entertain me until sleep could find its way into my little mind. Among the wreckage of blog fails and dead forums, I found a link to a surprisingly spry new midnight chat buddy. He (or she, as the bot has no defined sex) is known simply as Cleverbot and is ready to chat about whatever random ideas are floating about one's mind in the middle of the night.

Once I found the page, I didn't really know what to do. Cleverbot looks a bit like a search engine page; vast and empty, waiting for you to input something glamorous to learn about. As I pondered what to search for, a single line of text mysteriously appeared.

"Hello." Said the screen known as Cleverbot.

"Hello." I replied.

And so began our quiet little midnight chat. I must say that while completely entertaining Cleverbot does have its limitations. For one, it is not like chatting one-on-one with a witty human counterpart. Be it lag or the time of computation, Cleverbot can take an incredible amount of time to respond when you call it "Smartypants" or "Fantastical" which makes it feel more like chatting with a distracted college co-ed than esteemed peer.

There is a note at the bottom of the text box that states, "The bot learns to be clever from real people..." which makes me wonder if Cleverbot stores both questions and answers in its memory bank similar to a handheld game of 20-Questions, for use in responses to like-words appearing in text at a later date? Or does it do an automatic web-search of topics to and key phrases on the spot? Either way, I am sure that as more users find the AI and others like it the response time and content will become quicker and sharper.

Once I seemed to hit a dead-end in the conversation with Cleverbot (it informed me that I was to call it "MR. Smartypants" for the duration of our conversation and I refused), I clicked the link in the upper right hand portion of the screen and found myself on Clever's sister site icogno. Icogno is home to a speaking Avatar named Joan who seemed to be a bit more responsive to my inquiries than Clever had been.

Within a few moments, Joan had asked if I played in a band and told me that she knew how to play the cello. I told her that I had only ever played rock band, and that I like playing the guitar. She feigned interest as well as any other sandy-haired librarian-type woman ever has to such a statement, so I suppose that icogno has gotten a little closer to realism than I had anticipated. (And by feigning interest, I mean that she promptly crossed her arms in front of her chest, smiled half-heartedly and looked as if she were waiting for me to say something a bit more profound.)

Although not a substitution for a rousing chat with someone from across the globe, Cleverbot and Joan are both at least entertaining enough to drop random thoughts and questions in during a moment of boredom in the middle of the night. I am sure that as their popularity increases and their programming advances that they will become more responsive and witty. In the meantime, they are both worth bookmarking for use during random fits of boredom.

If you would like to try Cleverbot or Joan out for yourself, click the links below.

www.cleverbot.com

www.icogno.com

Want to read more by Denise Kawaii? Click the links below:
How to Avoid Scams, Spams and Schemes Online
Nerd-vana: LAN Parties
Avoiding Cavity Probes: How to Tell If Your Boss Is An Alien