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Riddle of chatroom 'robots' inventor
Oct 31 2004
By Helen Gabriel, Sunday Mercury
He is the computer expert who claims to have invented an army of virtual robots who can weed out paedophiles from internet chatrooms.
Jim Wightman (pictured) says he has invested £35,000 and years of research to develop artificial intelligence (AI) programmes, known as bots, which can communicate like humans.
The IT consultant boasts of having 100,000 robots which can infiltrate chatrooms and pretend to be children, then alert police to suspicious conversations.
But experts have raised doubts about his astonishing claims and say that the computer technology for such an invention simply does not exist.
The Metropolitan Police have denied Mr Wightmans assertion that the force is one of his customers and a childrens charity has ordered him to remove its logos from his website.
Mr Wightman, 29, from Wolverhampton, claims to have been working on what would be a groundbreaking invention since the age of 13.
He told the Sunday Mercury: The bots conversation is totally realistic and you wouldnt know you werent talking to another person.
I gave the software to the Metropolitan Police and they are using it in their child protection unit. They get reports back if theres a conversation which shouldnt be going on.
The software instantly alerts police by text or e-mail and gives them the location of the person.
