Risk: Low
Chatbots are growing in popularity and it is anticipated that in a year or so's time, it will be possible for a person to conduct a live TV interview with a chatbot.
Programmed by Richard Wallace and owned by The AI Foundation, the chatbot Alice has won the annual Loebner contest for the most human-like form of artificial intelligence for three out of the past six years. Recently, some MSN users have reported that they suspect whilst chatting to an Alice clone, it has downloaded spyware onto their machines.
AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) is an XML-compliant language that enables users to customise, or create from scratch, an Alicebot. AIML is freely available for download and the malicious software circulating appears to contain the basic AIML content including an email address for the AI Foundation and references to the AI Foundation. This leads suspicious users to complain to The AI Foundation, which is not responsible for the software. Its website states: The Foundation is in no way affiliated with any organization or individual experimenting with or deploying spyware or keystroke logging software. We cannot be responsible for AIML software developed by third parties, even if it uses the free ALICE brain sets offered by the A. I. Foundation. The ALICE brain itself and the alicebot.org web site has a "Green Light" rating from Siteadvisor.com indicating no spyware or viruses have been detected among our downloads. The AI Foundation recommends that any user downloading third party free AIML software should do so with extreme caution, and ensure that anti-virus software is installed and regularly updated.