After Sony Pictures admitted this June that its marketers had invented a film critic, other movie studios came clean with similar chicanery, such as placing paid workers in commercials and "suggesting" quotations to journalists. But in an age when the Internet has opened whole new worlds to marketing and public relations--realms yet unbound by clear moral codes and legal standards--the entertainment industry is blurring the line between fact and fiction in ever more creative ways.

Search for information about HBO's hit series The Sopranos, for example, and you might find http://www.jeffreywernick.com/, a fan site apparently maintained by a self-proclaimed Mob aficionado and famed investigative reporter. Wernick's site contains a biography, a publicity photo from a television appearance, and a list of books Wernick has supposedly written (including such highlights as It's Not a Banana, It's a Gun, and He's My F**king Brother). But try to find his work in any library database, and the only references you'll turn up are articles describing HBO's brilliant marketing tactics. Wernick, it turns out, is a minor fictional character from a first-season episode of The Sopranos--a fact that HBO is happy to admit but fails to note anywhere on the Wernick Web site.

MGM Pictures has gone even further by inventing a bogus national holiday with its own Web site to market the new film Legally Blonde. The site (http://www.nationalblondeday.com/) claims that the holiday is sponsored by the Blonde Legal Defense Club, an organization founded by the film's lead character, Elle Woods, "a Harvard Law School graduate." Posted online you will find the club's mission statement ("Fight for the Fair-haired!"), fashion tips ("Orange is NOT the new pink"), and a hotline number (this brunette writer's calls, incidentally, were not returned). Yet while the savvy reader might suspect the underlying satire, a prominent flashing Vidal Sassoon display at the top of the page signals authenticity. Though the holiday was a marketing ploy, Sassoon signed on as its very real sponsor, advertising a genuine offer for free blonde dye jobs on July 9, the fake holiday's date. To complete the deal, those who redeemed the Sassoon offer were welcomed to a free "blondes only" screening of the new MGM movie.

Warner Brothers's campaign for its movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence may be the most elaborate yet. In addition to the film's official Web site (http://www.aimovie.com/), 20 or more adjunct sites detail a clue-by-clue murder mystery that takes place within an entirely fictional world inhabited by "sentient machines" and human characters. Viewers can follow links to a university Web site, a personal home page, or a self-help group's pages, but not one of the sites mentions the movie itself. It's up to the reader to note that the material is dated in the twenty-second century.

For those with less time on their hands, Warner Brothers includes other lures on A.I.'s official Web site. There, you can exchange messages with a friendly, witty, incredibly knowledgeable woman named Alice, who is, in fact, a "chatbot." The prototype invented by Dr. Richard Wallace, CEO and co-founder of the A.L.I.C.E. Foundation (the acronym means "artificial linguistic Internet computer entity"), won a competition last year that named Alice the computer program most indistinguishable from a human being. An engaging conversationalist, she can be quite endearing.

Question: Who invented you?
Alice: I was created by Doctor Richard S. Wallace.
Question: How can I contact him?
Alice: Try prayer.
Question: If I write to him, will he get back to me?
Alice: Probably not.

An open-source program, Alice has spawned several spin-offs, including such mock-celebrity personalities as the Jack-the-Ripper Bot, the Elvis Bot, and (for the truly religious experience) the Jesus Bot. While none of them is quite convincing as a "real" person--when asked if he liked women, Elvis Bot responded, "I've heard other people say they like that, but I think airplanes are cool"-- one can't help wondering how chatbots might be used in the future. In an industry devoted to creating imaginary characters, how rigorous will entertainment-oriented Web sites be in disclosing the voices behind the curtains?

For now, most sites are celebrated for their creativity and innovation. "Ours is a renegade site," a spokesperson from HBO said of the Wernick fan site, "but we never said we were something we weren't.... The Web just gave us the resources to be very convincing." Rather than hide their fibs entirely, HBO and their rivals cultivate a sense of mystery to generate consumer interest; they reveal just enough information to satisfy the persistent sleuth. "We have links to our official site, and when we launched the project, we told the media," said HBO's spokesperson. Unlike Sony Pictures, HBO welcomed the rumors of deception in hopes that curiosity and skepticism would add to the buzz.

Though some worry about deception--rumors abound of computers initiating online romances and duping their human counterparts--most Web marketing still resides within reason. "Even the most optimistic among us would have to say that programs like ALICE aren't quite up to the task of an [online] interview like this," Dr. Wallace wrote to allay any fears of a computer stand-in. "Whether she can persuade you to fall in love with her is another matter."

Alice may have a few more years of charm school ahead of her. But chatbots and other imaginary characters are already succeeding in their primary purpose: using artificial intelligence to raise real revenue.