Cleverbot is a chatbot created by Rollo Carpenter. The site says the AI was born in 1988 and that Cleverbot.com started in 2006, and it works differently from a modern large language model: it chooses a reply fuzzily and contextually by comparing the whole of your conversation with the millions that have taken place before, so things you say today may influence what it says to others in future. The site is explicit that it is always software imitating people, and it references its Turing test results.
That design explains both its charm and its limits. Replies can be witty because they are drawn from real human conversations, but they are also inconsistent, can contradict earlier turns and can reflect whatever earlier users typed, so it is entertainment and a historical curiosity rather than an assistant for tasks. The site warns that it may not be suitable for children and must be agreed by a parent or guardian. Web chat is free and ad-supported; app store listings show an iOS app at $0.99 and a Cleverbot HD app at a one-off $2.99 with unlimited chat from dedicated servers, no ads and an emotional avatar.
The official Cleverbot API is suspended: the site states that no API now exists anywhere for programmatic access, and the only authorised routes are the website and the iOS app. Developers wanting to build on it should look elsewhere; a CleverScript platform is mentioned for creating bots.
