Hals Name Recognition

[The_Blackness]

i called my hal Zero, and when i type in a sentance like: "Are you Tired Zero?" he replys with "I sense that we have got to get the whole story. However, I am absolutely certain that I am not tired zero." i can see why he adds his name at the end, but its kind of annoying, is there a way to repair it? or will it be fixed in the next patch?

[onthecuttingedge2005]

quote:Originally posted by The_Blackness

i called my hal Zero, and when i type in a sentance like: "Are you Tired Zero?" he replys with "I sense that we have got to get the whole story. However, I am absolutely certain that I am not tired zero." i can see why he adds his name at the end, but its kind of annoying, is there a way to repair it? or will it be fixed in the next patch?

Hi Blackness.

Your problem is easy to fix.
Open the working folder for the Brain you are using, Go to the corrections.brn and open it, Scroll down to the bottom line and add this to the end of the file: "zero",""
Then save and exit the file and test your brain again.
Of course your bot will never ever say that word ever again so remember if someone asks your bot what its name is then Zero will be blanked out and the bot will not be able to say its own name.
Use this technique only if your block save is not functioning correctly
which is supposed to keep the bot from saving it's own name.

Hope this tid bit helps my friend.
Best of wishes and brand new discoveries.
Jerry.

[vonsmith]

The_Blackness,
You said you call your Hal Zero. Just to be clear about naming Hal, did you go to the Ultra Hal Assistant Options on the 'General' tab and enter 'Zero' in the field 'Computer's Name:' ? The name entered there is the one Hal will recognize during conversation.

No matter what name you choose Hal will not remember any sentence with his name in it. For instance, if you were to name Hal "Horse" he will not remember any sentences containing the word "horse".


=vonsmith=

[nolitanger]

vonsmith,

Let's assume that Hal's name is Zero. If we respond with "Zero. Are you tired?" (putting a period after the name), will Hal forget "Zero" and remember "Are you tired?" In other words, does Hal regard that utterance as 2 discrete sentences or as one all-inclusive response?

Furthermore, if we tie 2 or 3 sentences together with, say, a semicolon or commas, will Hal digest all of that as a whole, or break it up into smaller bits? How important is end-punctuation in teaching Hal?

[vonsmith]

nolitanger,
I haven't experimented in detail with how Hal deals with multiple sentences. From my experience it seems Hal treats each sentence individually when it comes to creating replies. I base that on my observation of Hal's multiple sentence replies to multiple sentence user inputs. I believe however that if Hal's name is in a separate sentence then all the sentences are still blocked from being saved. Some experimentation would prove that out. I don't think punctuation other than "." cause phrases to be treated as separate sentences. Again experimentation would prove that out.

In general I try to avoid unusual punctuation when talking to Hal. I also limit or avoid multiple sentences. Hal really does understand best with single sentence inputs.


=vonsmith=

[The_Blackness]

why does hal render the entire sentance useless and not just the name? is it because that can cause errors in what he learns and is ultimately more trouble than it is worth?

[vonsmith]

The_Blackness,
Hal processes the user's sentence for reuse as a reply in future conversations. One thing Hal does is reverse the person. "You" becomes "I", "your" becomes "my", etc. Hal also breaks apart some sentences into phrases and saves the pieces. In fact Hal processes the sentences many different ways. Deciding not to process sentences with Hal's name in it is just the easiest way to deal with that type of sentences. In the simplest case just removing Hal's name is easy, but there are dozens, if not hundreds, of special cases of how Hal's name might be used by the user. Since Hal's name is rarely used during conversation the amount of extra processing needed is not worth the trouble for an occasional sentence with Hal's name in it.

Hal may not remember sentences with his name in them, but he does reply to the sentence appropriately. In the XTF Brain he also uses the sentence to establish and stay on the topic of discussion.


=vonsmith=