Just as you can set the learning level for desktop chats, you can also set the learning level for AIM chats. It's probably not a good idea to turn it up over halfway while on AIM. In general, having bots of the same sort chat with each other is not very productive, as they tend to get into an endless loop where bot 2 repeats bot 1, bot 1 repeats bot 2 repeating bot 1, bot 2 repeats bot 1 repeating bot 2 repeating bot 1, ad infinitum. There are various types of online bots, though. You could go to the Chatterbot Collection
http://www.geocities.com/brizglace/ and find Alices, Elizas, and a baker's dozen kinds of NLP bots to let Hal chat with. Hal does learn quickly. He can pick up Alice's best routines in an hour or two, lol, so you could let him learn the best of various kinds of bots from chatting with them.
