Witty machines

Luigi's post from the Exploratorium Explainers reminded me of a funny one-hour conversation I had with a chatbot some four years ago. I was wondering why did its responses seem so meaningful at times and was certain that if I talked enough with it I would make sense of the algorhythm. Meanwhile, chatbots have certainly become wittier (that one was not bad also, he did keep me absorbed for one hour). One important thing they miss is memory: they reply to your last question and cannot integrate the input from the conversation into the following answers.

To see where the conversation between two machines can lead, take a look at this article, I chat, therefore I am. Don't miss the conversation extract

Or just talk to Alice

PS: Wouldn'it it be interesting to adapt a chatbot for a museum website? Imagine a chatbot backed by a database that stores information on subjects ranging from the Enlightenment to Indian arts (not necessarily all together) I would spend half an hour every once in a while talking to a machine that would answer all my questions. Funnier than reading a dozen of articles. Remember the witty know-it-all computer in "Artificial Intelligence"?