Project Hello7000

Chatbots are AI applications designed to have conversations with humans by detecting the meaning of the questions and giving appropriate answers. Some of them can also ask questions and reply to the answers accordingly.

Also known as personal assistants, some chatbots are so well developed that they can perform a wide range of tasks, like paying bills, buying objects, or giving food recommendations based on your surroundings. Great examples include Google Assistant, Siri and Cortana.

If you're interested in a lesser chatbot, especially if you're looking for a free and open-source project that gives you the possibility to take it apart and figure out how it works, you can try Project Hello7000.

Made with Java, this is a lightweight and easy-to-use program that can ask you questions and respond to your messages. It's ideal for computers without an active Internet connection since it doesn't have to be online to work properly.

On the other hand, its database is pretty small. Unfortunately, there are no clear indications to the type of questions or commands that you can give to the chatbot, aside from the fact that you can ask it to tell you a story (it has a built-in random story generator). Other than that, our tests have shown that you can ask how it's feeling, what its name is, and what it is.

The random stories are short and some of them don't make sense. An inconvenient aspect we've noticed is that the main window automatically moves to its default position on the screen after sending a command.

Taking everything into account, Project Hello7000 is not a sophisticated chatbot but a good starting point for users interested in getting to know one. However, it cannot be called a personal assistant since it cannot perform tasks.