After school on Monday, Jack and Jill rushed home to begin their research on chatbots. They sat side by side at the desk in their shared study space, a tablet between them opened to a search page.

"Okay," said Jill, pushing her glasses up slightly. "Let's start with the basics. What exactly is a chatbot?"

Jack typed the question into the search bar. "According to this, a chatbot is a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the internet."

"So basically, it's software that talks to you like it's a person," Jill summarized, "But it's actually just code and algorithms."

Jack nodded and continued reading. "It says here that chatbots have been around longer than we might think. The first one was created in 1966! It was called ELIZA and was designed to mimic a psychotherapist."

"1966? That's ancient history!" Jill exclaimed. "But wait, how could they make chatbots back then? They didn't even have smartphones."

"It says ELIZA ran on massive computers and was pretty simple. It mostly just repeated what people said as questions. Like if you said 'I'm feeling sad,' it might respond with 'Why are you feeling sad?'" Jack explained.

Jill picked up her notebook and began writing. "So chatbots have evolved over time. The ones we use today must be much more sophisticated."

"Definitely. Look at this," Jack said, pointing to a diagram on the screen. "Modern chatbots use something called Natural Language Processing—or NLP for short—which helps them understand human language better. And some newer ones use something called Large Language Models."

"What kinds of chatbots do we use every day?" Jill wondered aloud.

Jack was already scrolling through examples. "There's virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, customer service bots on websites, help bots in video games, and educational bots like Nova from the computer lab."

Jill looked thoughtful. "So chatbots are computer programs that can talk to us in a way that feels like talking to another person. They use special technology to understand our questions and give helpful answers."

"Exactly!" Jack grinned. "And they're getting smarter all the time. I read that modern chatbots can even remember previous conversations and learn from them."

"That's a little creepy," Jill said, "but also pretty amazing. I wonder how they actually work under the hood..."

Jack closed one article and opened another. "That's what we'll research next. But one thing's for sure—chatbots are everywhere, and they're changing how we interact with technology."

As the afternoon sun streamed through their window, the siblings continued their research, fascinated by this world of artificial conversation that they'd never really thought about before, despite encountering it almost every day.