Julia the Chatterbot can be interviewed by telnet to fuzine.mt.cs.cum, login "julia". You have to kind of go along with what Julia wants to talk about. For more info, see . Other virtual humans are available from Silicon Graphics Inc. ; the Center for Human Modeling and Simulation ; and Boston Dynamics . [Bill Park , 6/26/96.]

You can also chat with a computer at . [Dave Morris, 7/96.]

"Virtual Girlfriends" is a popular video game in Tokyo. Players steer a boy through high school, where he must look nice, get good grades, be popular, and win dates and love. "The fun lies in the process of finding out what makes a girl happy." [UPI. This is True, 6/16/96.] (There's an earlier game where men get to raise a daughter from infancy. Very popular.)

AIVR Corp. (Richardson, TX) offers several "virtual companions" that converse via natural language typing and PC sound card as you branch through photo sequences. About $40 for the G-rated versions, or $60 with sexually explicit conversations and scenes. "Our AI actually reacts to the sentence in much the same way that a human being would." The Girlfriend personalities understand psychology and their bodies, clothing, and apartments, and can learn words and personal facts (retained between sessions). Free catalog from , (214) 235-4999, (214) 235-4992 Fax. [comp.ai.nat-lang, 6/26/96.]

(The company is also available for custom programming of NL front ends and AI reasoning in games. Contact <[email protected]>. Dave Morris first developed an NL database query system for banks, then wrote a program for ham radio packet modem that impersonated him and conversed about ham radio equipment, antennas, transceivers, modems, etc. (and then printed a QSL postcard). He claims that his current software is far beyond the Loebner Prize Competition demos at .)

For Microsoft research into life-like characters, see the brief description and .wav download at . [Dave Morris, 7/96.]

-- Ken