Speaking with machines: interacting with bots for language teaching and
learning
What is it? This piece explores technologies for freer communication with machines, i.e. bots (chatbots or conversational agents), rather than the concept of speaking to machines, such as Intelligent Assistants (IA) like Alexa. Bots are computer programmes which simulate natural intelligent communication using text or speech technologies. The first chatbot claimed to pass the Turing Test (a test to identify whether a computer is intelligent), ELIZA, was created by Joseph Weizenbaum in 1966 to imitate a psychotherapist. More recently, interest in chatbots appears to have shifted from whether they can be perceived as human to their ability to imitate natural conversations to achieve specific purposes and provide efficient customer services.