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Mr. Thiel’s favorite was a bot that imitated Karl Kautsky, a Czech-Austrian socialist who died before World War Two.

When Mr. Thiel asked Kautsky’s digital avatar to provide some advice for modern-day socialists struggling to rebuild the worker’s movement in Germany, Kautsky-bot suggested that they launch a newspaper.

“If you read what someone like Kautsky wrote in the 19th century, he does not use the same language we use today,” he said.

The result is a practically endless collection of bots that can imitate a practically endless collection of people, riffing on a practically endless number of topics, as Mr. Thiel found when he chatted with the Karl Kautsky bot:

Karl Kautsky: You are right, it was a mistake to be over optimistic in that regard.