Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

chatterbots 83known for its sophisticated pattern-matching and patternprocessing capabilities. A similar language, Icon, is widelyused for specialized string-processing tasks today. Manyprogrammers working with textual data in the UNIX environmenthave found that the awk and Perl languages areeasier to use than C for extracting and manipulating datafields. (See awk and Perl.)Further ReadingGillam, Richard. Unicode Demystified: A Practical Programmer’sGuide to the Encoding Standard. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 2002.Korpela, Jukka. Unicode Explained. Sebastapol, Calif.: O’Reilly,2006.A Tutorial on Character Code Issues. Available online. URL: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/chars.html. Accessed May 31, 2007.Unicode Consortium. Unicode Standard, Version 5.0. 5th ed. Reading,Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 2006.chat, onlineIn general terms, to “chat” is to communicate in real timeby typing messages to other online users who can immediatelytype messages in reply. It is this conversational immediacythat distinguishes chat services from conferencingsystems or bulletin boards.Commercial ServicesMany PC users have become acquainted with chattingthrough participating in “chat rooms” operated by onlineservices such as America Online (AOL). A chat room isa “virtual space” in which people meet either to socializegenerally or to discuss particular topics. At their best,chat rooms can develop into true communities whose participantsdevelop long-term friendships and provide oneanother with information and emotional support (see virtualcommunity).However, the essentially anonymous character of chat(where participants often use “handles” rather than realnames) that facilitates freedom of expression can also providea cover for mischief or even crime. Chat rooms haveacquired a rather lurid reputation in the eyes of the generalpublic. There has been considerable public concern aboutchildren becoming involved in inappropriate sexual conversation.This has been fueled by media stories (sometimesexaggerated) about children being recruited into face-tofacemeetings with pedophiles. AOL and other online serviceshave tried to reduce such activity by restricting onlinesex chat to adults, but there is no reliable mechanism fora service to verify its user’s age. A chat room can also besupervised by a host or moderator who tries to prevent“flaming” (insults) or other behavior that the online serviceconsiders to be inappropriate.Distributed ServicesFor people who find commercial online services to be tooexpensive or confining, there are alternatives available forjust the cost of an Internet connection. The popular InternetRelay Chat (IRC) was developed in Finland by JarkkoOikarinen in the late 1980s. Using one of the freely availableclient programs, users connect to an IRC server, whichin turn is connected to one of dozens of IRC networks.Users can create their own chat rooms (called channels).There are thousands of IRC channels with participants allover the world. To participate, a user simply joins a channeland sees all messages currently being posted by otherusers of the channel. In turn, the user’s messages are postedfor all to see. While IRC uses only text, there are nowenhanced chat systems (often written in Java to work with aWeb browser) that add graphics and other features.There are many other technologies that can be usedfor conversing via the Internet. Some chat services (suchas Cu-SeeMe) enable participants to transmit their images(see videoconferencing and Web cam). Voice can alsobe transmitted over an Internet connection (see voip). For avery pervasive form of “ad hoc” textual communication, seetexting and instant messaging.Further ReadingMcDonald, Wayne. Chat Rooms in Wonderland. Frederick, Md.:PublishAmerica, 2005.Ploch, Nicolas. “A Short IRC Primer.” Available online. URL: http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/ircprimer.html. Accessed June 1,2007.Wasuki, Dennis D. Self-Games and Body-Play: Personhood in OnlineChat and Cybersex. Bern: Peter Lang, 2003.Weverka, Peter. Mastering ICQ: the Official Guide. Dulles, Va.: ICQPress, 2001.chatterbotsThe famous Turing test (see Turing, Alan M.) proposesthat if a human is unable to reliably distinguish messagesfrom a computer from those of another person, thecomputer program involved can at least be provisionallydeclared to be “intelligent.” The advent of textual communicationvia the Internet (see texting and instant messaging)has afforded a variety of ways to attempt to meetthis challenge. Programs that mimic human conversationalstyles have come to be known as “chatterbots.”The prototypical chatterbot was ELIZA, developed byJoseph Weizenbaum in the mid-1960s (see Weizenbaum,Joseph). ELIZA mimicked a form of nondirective psychotherapyin which the therapist echoes or plays off of the client’sstatements as a form of gentle encouragement and validation.Thus if one types, “My father didn’t really like me,” ELIZAmight reply, “Tell me more about your father.” Althoughprimitive, ELIZA once inadvertently fooled an executive intothinking he was exchanging messages with Weizenbaum.Other classic chatterbots include Parry, designed to mimic aparanoid, and the story-generating Racter.The first online chatterbot, Julia, was created by MichaelMauldin in 1994. (Mauldin also coined the term chatterbot.)More sophisticated chatterbots include Jabberwocky, whichincludes learning algorithms, and ELLA, which applieslinguistic principles to produce more realistic speech (seenatural language processing). On a negative note, somechatterbots have been designed to enter chat rooms andspew advertising (spambots) or even to elicit personal information(see identity theft and phishing and spoofing).