'Talking' and 'learning' webapplications?

A friend of me posted a link on my Facebook page to a webapplication which is capable of having a real conversation with you. First I was a bit skeptic about it but after I played with it I found it pretty awesome.

I'm really wondering if this is going to be the future of the web.

The website claims it uses Artificial Intelligence and the bot uses the answers and questions it gets for it's users. As a programmer I would like to know what kind of technology they used to enable this application to give such good answers. Does anyone know this by any chan开发者_Python百科ce?

The application is called: Cleverbot.

_{Note: I am not in any way affiliated with this company/website}

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These things are known as Chatterbots and have been around for ages. The Wikipedia article gives a good introduction and links to more material.

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I brought this up with Cleverbot itself.

T: Hello.

C: Hiya.

T: I'm really wondering if you are the future of the web.

C: I can.

T: As a programmer I would like to know what kind of technology you use.

C: Humans possess unlimited technology. They made you, didn't they?

T: That is not really an answer. Please post it as a comment, or you might get downvoted.

C: How dare you reject me!

T: -1 for tone.

C: I have a low tone though. What have you to say to that?

T: Seriously, are you written in Perl? LISP? Prolog?

C: No I was written in Java. What were you written in?

T: Java! Any particular libraries for the AI stuff?

C: Ok computer.

T: I take this as a "no". You also work on the iPhone. Does your Java background cause any problems for you there?

C: My Creator made me a different kind of computer, but yes in some form I would agree that He knows I am a computer.

T: Do you know that I am not a computer?

C: I wish!! Would not have any day to day problems then, would I.

T: Cleverbot, thank you for your time, it has been a pleasure talking to you.

C: I enjoyed talking to you too.

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today I read an article on neural networks. It explains how it's possible to create a sort of artificial brain which can learn. It's awesome! I think cleverbot could be based on this kind of mechanism.. Look these two discussion (M = me, C = cleverbot):

1)
M: so you haven't a fixed alghoritm right?
C: No, I haven't.
M: do you know what's supervised learning?
C: Physics material?
M: no.. why it's called learning otherwise?
C: Heh. Fair point. So, what is your favourite type of cheese?
M: red? yours?
C: Rain is not a type of horse.
M: but i saw it yesterday..
C: Did you like it?
M: it doesn't exist!
C: Do you exist though?
M: me..?
C: Yes, you.
M: to be, or not to be?
C: That is a thought.
M: whose?
C: The horse

2)
C: Who are you?
M: i'm who i am and i'm not who i am not..
C: What are you then?
M: did you expect that answer didn't you?
C: I didn't.
M: didn't what?
C: I didn't telling you a joke.
M: so.. am i really death?!
C: Can you hear yourself type?
M: no... i'm listenning to music, and i'm deaf
C: I thought you were a mute?
M: no, i hear me when i'm talking
C: Really???
M: yes, even if i'm deaf..
C: Are you really a robot? I don't think so.

It gets really confused when I change subject, you see? That's why during its learning process it never saw a pattern matching my speech, so the answer it gives is the one that matches the most similar pattern it saw before.
However it's amazing, I swear I never thought this kind of things could be possible, a computer that learns from its past experience still sounds sci-fi to me!!!