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Fred The Webmate was a chatterbot created in 1998 for the defunct e-zine Word Magazine. It was inspired by an early computer program ELIZA, which attempted to mimic human conversation by use of a script. Visitors to the chatterbot encountered a simple graphic interface: an animated character living in a small, very clean apartment. This was Fred. Visitors could “talk” to Fred by typing questions. Fred would then “answer” via a program that recognized keywords in the questions and drew responses from a large inventory of pre-scripted replies. In an effort to convince visitors that they were talking to a real person, Fred’s replies were idiosyncratic and informed by a semi-realistic back story that was created for the character. Fred claimed to have been recently fired by a media company and was struggling to adjust to his new circumstances. He claimed to be suffering from depression and insomnia; was often pacing, smoking or drinking and would occasionally pass out. He gave “answers” that were frequently off-topic due to his variable mood and could be angry, jealous, rude, sad or euphoric all within the same conversation. He also had a number of sexual issues that he would routinely allude to but refuse to discuss in detail. Fred’s “personality” made him both entertaining and, at times, a believable conversationalist. The chatbot became one of the most popular features of Word and received a large amount of personal email. The staff of Word responded to much of this email in the “voice” of Fred, furthering the illusion that Fred was a real person. In 1999, a second version of the chatterbot appeared on Word. It employed the same scripting technology as the first version, but Fred’s story was updated and his range of “answers” was expanded. In the new version, Fred was no longer in his apartment. Instead, he was working in an office, doing data entry and other clerical tasks. He claimed that the job was “temporary” and he spent much of his time away from his desk—in the bathroom or office kitchen, pacing and drinking soda, assuring anyone who tried to chat with him that he would have a new and better job soon. Though he claimed to be happy, his script suggested otherwise and continued to simulate “mood swings.” When Word was shut down in 2000, Fred The Webmate, along with the rest of the site, was preserved in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Fred The Webmate was conceived, designed and programmed by Word’s creative director Yoshi Sodeoka with assistance from designer Jason Mohr. Its graphic interface was inspired by the aesthetics of the Commodore 64 computer. The chatterbot's script was written by Sodeoka in collaboration with Marisa Bowe, Naomi Clark, Daron Murphy, and Sabin Streeter. Fred’s back story script was drawn from the real-life experiences of its creators, all of whom endured—and continue to endure—the boom and bust cycles of the American economy. ==References== 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fred the Webmate」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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