Should the chatterbot have a special personality like a lively person?
You have to decide, if you want to fool the user. If they should believe in talking with a real person, then: Yes, make your bot a personality. Some bots was runners in front at the Loebner contest because they seems to be an australian school boy surfin’ all the day, or a bar tender settled on London, or because they know all about hamsters … If you want to generate a real human character for the bot, you have to know not only the name and gender (!), but birthday, career at school, university and job, the family background (wife’s and children’s names and ages), pets, possessions, and last not least special interests and knowledges. If you possibly have played any role playing games already, you may know what to do :-)) But – dont try it to hard. Most of the users are not interested in the personal background of your “virtual person”, and in the most cases, you are not able to misguide them beyond some minutes. The user will realise soon that they are talking to a bot only.
