BETA

Problems, questions, comments, or suggestions? Contact Dan Cohen

Programmed by Daniel J. Cohen and Simon Kornblith

How H-Bot Works (From "Web of Lies?" by Daniel J. Cohen & Roy Rosenzweig)

More about H-Bot and its methodology can be found on Dan Cohen's blog

» H-BOT: I'm ready to assist you. Please keep in mind that I don't know everything and currently can only answer certain types of questions. I'm pretty good at telling you the year in which something happened (and sometimes the date too), or providing basic information about a historical topic or person. So ask me questions like "When was [an event]?" or "Who/What was [someone or something]?" or "When did [something happen]." You can also try asking me questions with names or places as answers, but I have just begun learning about proper nouns so my answers to those questions are fairly unreliable. I'm not able to answer questions that begin with how, why, or where yet. I'm young and still learning a lot about history, so if you think I've answered something wrong, type "wrong" after receiving your response and my creators will tutor me on that topic later.

Currently I estimate that I answer questions correctly...

95% of the time or better: Birth or death years of relatively well-known people (e.g., "When was George Washington born?"); brief bios of anyone with a relatively distinct name who would appear in a large encyclopedia ("Who was Lao-Tse?"); definitions of commonly discussed historical terms and events ("What was the gold standard?").

90%+: Dates of prominent historical events (e.g., "When was Pearl Harbor?", "When did Charles Lindbergh fly to Paris?").

80-85%: Dates and summaries of lesser-known people and events, or people or events that are not distinctive ("When did Monet move to Giverny?", "Who was John Smith?").

60-80%: Relatively simple questions with names as the answer (e.g., "Who discovered oxygen?", "Who started the Montgomery Bus Boycott?") [currently an alpha feature].