Chatbot
A program designed to simulate conversation with human users.
A chatbot is a computer program that can hold conversations with people. You can type messages to it, and it will respond as if it were a person.
Think of it like a virtual assistant you can chat with. For example, you could ask a chatbot for information, to write a story, or to help you brainstorm ideas.
A chatbot is a software application that simulates human conversation through text or voice interactions. Modern chatbots are often powered by large language models (LLMs), which enable them to understand context, generate coherent responses, and perform various natural language processing tasks.
These systems typically involve a user interface, a natural language understanding (NLU) component to interpret input, a dialogue management system to track conversation state, and a natural language generation (NLG) component to formulate responses. Tradeoffs include computational cost, potential for factual inaccuracies (hallucinations), and the complexity of maintaining consistent persona and safety guardrails.
Chatbots are central to current AI discussions because they represent the most direct interface for users to interact with advanced AI models. Recent news highlights the business and policy implications of these models, particularly concerning their training data and the settlements arising from their use.
- Authors Wrangle With Publishers Over $1.5 Billion Anthropic A.I. SettlementAnthropic · New York Times Technology ·
- Anthropic Claude
- Anthropic develops chatbots like Claude, which are designed to be helpful, honest, and harmless.
- Virtual Assistant
- While many virtual assistants use chatbot technology, they ar
- Search Engine
- Search engines provide links to information, while chatbots aim t
- AI Agent
- An AI agent is a broader concept that can include chatbots, but also i
The term 'chatbot' was first used in the 1960s with Joseph Weizenbaum's ELIZA program, designed to simulate a Rogerian psychotherapist. Source ↗
Open a chatbot interface, like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. Ask it to explain a complex topic in simple terms, like 'quantum computing.' Then, ask it to write a short poem about your favorite animal. This shows its ability to both explain and create.
The Playbook: reusable how-tos, prompts, configs and tips pulled out of the news.
- PromptRole-play a student struggling with math for AI tutor simulationSimulate a student's math struggles and uncertainty for AI tutor evaluation. · 5 min
- TemplateReusable workflow templates for healthcare teamsTeams can create and share templates for common workflows like documentation or prior authorizations. · 15 min
- TemplateTemplate for building an AI tool tailored to your workA structured approach to defining and building a custom AI tool for specific business needs. · 15 min
- TemplateEvals CSV prompt list for agent skillsA CSV file template for listing prompts used in evaluating agent skills. · 20 min
- HeuristicDouble coding agent task completion with docs linksProviding coding agents with a documentation link significantly increases their task completion rate. · 2 min
Questions people ask
- Can chatbots think?
- Chatbots do not think or have consciousness. They are sophisticated pattern-matching systems trained on vast amounts of text data to generate human-like responses.
- Are chatbots always accurate?
- No, chatbots can sometimes provide incorrect or nonsensical information, a phenomenon known as 'hallucination.' It's important to verify critical information from other sources.
First seen on Subvolts Sep 5, 2026. Updated Sep 15, 2026. Written by an AI model from the items above and reviewed against them weekly; report an error.