Editing Chatbot (section)

== Limitations ==
Traditional chatbots particularly lacked understanding of user requests, leading to clunky, repetitive conversations. Their pre-programmed responses would often fail to satisfy unexpected user queries, causing frustration. These chatbots were particularly unhelpful for users who lacked a clear understanding of their problem or the service they needed.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Navaluri |first=Vijay |date=2024-04-09 |title=Chatbots are dead: How generative AI & automation is transforming the way we interact with technology |url=https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/security-tech/technology/chatbots-are-dead-how-generative-ai-automation-is-transforming-the-way-we-interact-with-technology/articleshow/109153190.cms |access-date=2025-05-25 |work=The Economic Times |issn=0013-0389}}</ref>

Chatbots based on [[Large language model|large language models]] are much more versatile, but require a large amount of conversational data to train. These models generate new responses word by word based on user input, and are usually trained on a large dataset of natural-language phrases.<ref name="Caldarini-20223" /> They sometimes provide plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers, referred to as "[[Hallucination (artificial intelligence)|hallucinations]]". They can for example make up names, dates, or historical events.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Stover |first=Dawn |date=2023-09-03 |title=Will AI make us crazy? |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2023.2245247 |journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |language=en |volume=79 |issue=5 |pages=299–303 |bibcode=2023BuAtS..79e.299S |doi=10.1080/00963402.2023.2245247 |issn=0096-3402 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> When humans use and apply chatbot content contaminated with hallucinations, this results in "botshit".<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hannigan |first1=Timothy R. |last2=McCarthy |first2=Ian P. |last3=Spicer |first3=André |date=2024-03-20 |title=Beware of botshit: How to manage the epistemic risks of generative chatbots |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0007681324000272 |journal=Business Horizons |volume=67 |issue=5 |pages=471–486 |doi=10.1016/j.bushor.2024.03.001 |issn=0007-6813 |url-access=subscription}}</ref> Given the increasing adoption and use of chatbots for generating content, there are concerns that this technology will significantly reduce the cost it takes humans to generate [[misinformation]].<ref>{{Cite news |date=2023-01-06 |title=Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews Gary Marcus |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-gary-marcus.html |access-date=2024-04-21 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>