Someone to talk to . . . some thing to talk to . . .

I've always found "talking" to chat bots rather frustrating. The conversations are usually quite limited and circular, and I lose interest after a few minutes. A.L.I.C.E. (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) is more entertaining and sophisticated than most. The program doesn't claim to be anything other than a computer that is still "learning" (though it seems to know a lot already), and the conversations are surprisingly natural (as these things go).

Chat with A. L. I. C. E. here.