(I'm not exactly sure where to post this but I figured, if I'm gonna make a suggestion, it should be in the suggestions section right?)

In a lot of forums I've been a part of before that I use for games and other such things, they've always implemented a forum chat AI somewhere along the line. Giving it a name, a original art design for it's profile picture, and other such things to give them a kind of "personality".

They then start learning more things down the line as users posted in their thread, replying to people and learning phrases, asking those phrases back to other people and seeing how they respond. Kind of like Cleverbot, except less of a cynical bastard.

Every time people get bored they always just post on their threads, getting quick replies from the chat AI and enjoying themselves. It was always fun and it gave some more people incentive to post. Heck, if it weren't for Amy, the first forum chat AI I ran into, I would've never even bothered to post on any forums during my life, she gave me the final push to get onto the forum and post because I knew she wasn't a "real person" but still something I could have a silly conversation with without having any big mean opinions being directed at me, it helped me gather the courage to post since I never did anything forum related up till then.

In the end, I'm just curious, will Vizzed ever consider this option? It's an excellent way to attract more users to the forum and also give the board a sort of "mascot" character that people can chat with to stave off boredom or to just have a quick, fun, and meaningless conversation with. (Although it can be meaningful if the poster lets it.)

Although in practice, I can see how this might be unwanted because of the Viz currency system, people who talk to the chat AI all day earning a ton of Viz without it being a real person on the other end giving out advice or having a "real" conversation. However this can be remedied by either nerfing the amount of Viz earned from chatting with the AI or just make it so posters don't earn any if that ends up being a problem.

Or you know, it could just not happen at all and my suggestion here will end up buried in the back of the forums being totally insignificant because no one cares about having something as silly as a chat AI in the forum. I've suggested this in many other forums and got rejected, pretty harshly sometimes, but seeing as how this forum is as interesting as it is, why not top it off with a nice bright cherry at the peak?

In the end though, it's only a suggestion, and these are my two cents. I'd like to hear some other peoples opinions on this though, and if it catches on, we could get some people on the board together and get an AI up and running, have someone draw it a neat avatar, decide on its "background" etc. All of this, of course, if it's within reasonable implementation standards, you know, not too complex or anything, since I hardly know a thing about programming forums myself.

I have to say that I've never seen anything like this before on any forum I've ever been to... it's rather intriguing...

It basically works the same way as Cleverbot, I've had a chance to see it in action in about two or three forums before.

What happens is that it's a forum version of the same AI Cleverbot runs on so whenever someone posts on the thread the AI resides in, it replies within a few seconds with it's own post, doing the usual chat AI thing, learning from people that talk to it and replying in it's own way using what it has learned.

There's another example that's like Cleverbot I think it's called A.L.I.C.E.

I don't know how hard it would be to implement one into a forum but I just think it'd be really neat to have our own chat bot.

I love this idea! if anything, this should be in the chat. If this was in threads, i feel that the forum would get spammed up. She/he could have her own chat box. Also, it could have it's own forum profile! You may also summon her/him in forums, if you feel she/he could be helpful. She could also respond to any questions about chat and forum rules, so you don't have to go bugging the moderators about it. Also, i know this is the cheesiest name ever, but maybe it could be nammed Vizzy?

Vizzy sounds nice, it's more feminine to me though so I'm assuming it'll be a female? I can totally draw her avatar picture and stuff, my art style is simplistic though so you can't expect it to be super detailed or amazing looking.

And yeah, the chat integration would make it nice too. Vizzy will get her own room and people can go in and talk to her, separate from each other of course unless we also add a way for Vizzy to be like "(Username): (Reply)" so that you know what she says back. There can be some set responses to start her up so if someone has a question they can ask her, she'll reply with messages pertaining to the certain question, like if someone asks "How do I earn Viz points?" She'll list a few options and then also link to the thread that has all the methods.

So, not only can we have a forum AI just for fun when you're bored and want a silly chat, but she can be helpful and reply to questions and such as well.

I like this idea, it might make her more complex though but if it can be pulled off the forum will improve quite a bit in my opinion.