# Fred (chatbot)

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**Fred**, or **FRED**, was an early [chatbot](/source/Chatbot) written by [Robby Garner](/source/Robby_Garner).

## History

The name Fred was initially suggested by Karen Lindsey, and then Robby jokingly came up with an acronym, "Functional Response Emulation Device."[1] Fred has also been implemented as a Java application by [Paco Nathan](/source/Paco_Nathan) called [JFRED](http://simonlaven.com/jfred.htm) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20080824232330/http://simonlaven.com/jfred.htm) 2008-08-24 at the Wayback Machine.

Fred Chatterbot is designed to explore [Natural Language](/source/Natural_language_processing) communications between people and computer programs. In particular, this is a study of conversation between people and ways that a computer program can learn from other people's conversations to make its own conversations.[2]

Fred used a minimalistic "stimulus-response" approach. It worked by storing a database of statements and their responses, and made its own reply by looking up the input statements made by a user and then rendering the corresponding response from the database. This approach simplified the complexity of the rule base, but required expert coding and editing for modifications.

Fred was a predecessor to [Albert One](/source/Albert_One), which Garner used in 1998 and 1999 to win the [Loebner Prize](/source/Loebner_Prize#Winners).[3]

## See also

- [Albert One](/source/Albert_One)
- [Conditioning](/source/Classical_conditioning#Theories)
- [Robby Garner](/source/Robby_Garner)

## References

1. ["The Simon Laven Page"](https://web.archive.org/web/20170618160554/http://www.simonlaven.com/fred.htm). Robitron History. 2017-06-18. Archived from [the original](http://www.simonlaven.com/fred.htm) on June 18, 2017.

1. Caputo, L.; Garner, R.; Nathan., P. (1997). ["FRED, Milton and Barry: the evolution of intelligent agents for the Web"](http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=304915). *Advances in Intelligent Systems*. ISBN 978-90-5199-355-4. – via ACM Digital Library.

1. Christiansen, Søren Gjellerup. ["Techniques applied to pass the Turing Test"](http://www.daimi.au.dk/~gjelle/thesis/cdrom/index.html). *Master's Thesis*. [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20070914091424/http://www.daimi.au.dk/~gjelle/thesis/cdrom/index.html) September 14, 2007 at the Wayback Machine.

## External links

- [Download Fred](http://www.simonlaven.com/fred.htm) *simonlaven.com*
- [JFRED](https://web.archive.org/web/20100610102440/http://homepage.mac.com/rgarner1/JFRED/) *mac.com*
- [Turing Hub testing](http://www.turinghub.com/) *turinghub.com*

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Fred (chatbot)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_(chatbot)) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_(chatbot)?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.