I think MegaHAL is (mostly?) just a markov model, and I think that was not exactly new when I looked at it around 2002. As I recall it was easier to distinguish

I think MegaHAL is (mostly?) just a markov model, and I think that was not exactly new when I looked at it around 2002. As I recall it was easier to distinguish from a human than Eliza, since it had a greater probability of spouting nonsense, but it was still amusing and fun to play with. Personal anecdote: I read one of Ray Kurzweils books in school back then, completely misunderstood how neural networks worked and ended up making a markov model chatbot with single word states.