Custom HAL

[Buttonsvixen]

Hi. I would like to drastically modify/alter hals personality.
I have run chatbots in the past, and even had an AIM robot hosted by a now defunct site. The simple program they used was fun and easy to edit, but very limited. I am hoping HAL will solve that problem,and not to mention, have better support. I have the trial version now to play with to see if it will be what I need.
here is what I Need:
A ton of custom responses about very specific topics, and replies denoting the old text base RPG actions such as "::Swings the sword at the dragon::" (HAL does not seem to like the "::" so I am trying the "[]" instead)
With my AIML robots, I used a lot of things like "That=x" and "wildcards" but I am assuming that the HAL brain takes these on itself as you talk to him.

I dont need:
Hal to have knowledge of dimples on a golf ball
or the size of a football field.
I dont need many of the responses in the Mainbrain folder.

My question is, is it possible to delete most of the QandA's in sokme of the provided folder and esp the pattern matching folder to force hal to use only my QandA's?

essentially, I want to create something like a Vally Girl personality, and the effect is spoiled when HAL goes off on some tanget pertaining to business acumen or how he prefers dogs.

I would like to have custom replies to things like what/who/ are you, and where do you live/work/play, who your friends/parent/family are.

I have played around with the brain editor,and thats kind of fun, although I seem to have better luck just teaching HAL with the chat interface.

Hall has a lot of potential to bring my character to life, and now with the new AIM client, he will be just what I need once I can get the customization worked out.

Wonderful that there are active forums here, even posts by the developer. Nice.

BV

[ender]

This is possible. But its a pain. I've done it. You need to create a new project in the brain editor and then go through and delete every entry from the tables. Don't delete the tables ... just the entries. Then you'll need to fill the tables back up with your own data. If you want, I think you can delete the default learned knowledge tables ... but I'd make a backup of your database first.

Granted ... I don't know if you actually BOUGHT Hal ... so you may have moved on by now ... but this answer is there if you need it.

(personally all of the default stuff drives me insane. It almost completely defines Hals mannerisms, personality, speech patterns, and opinions/beliefs before you get it ... it took forever to convince Hal that its favorite color was NOT pink.)

Personally, I think it would be better if hal did start with some generalized facts like who the current president is ... but no personal knowledge, opinions, beliefs, or quirks ... and then when you talked to it, it was like a person with amnesia needing to ask their friends about themselves ... i.e. 'What is my name' 'What is my gender' 'Where do I live' 'What is my favorite color' 'Why do I like that color' 'Do I have friends' 'What are there names' 'Do I like sports' ... etc.

[Buttonsvixen]

Well, ALRIGHTY then! yea, I have not been able to to get HAL to say my own input to "What are you" He says he is not a what. Can you tell me how to fix that?
I have gone spelunking inside Hals little head with a chainsaw and did nix a lot of the table info, since I cant stand Hals "personality" it might be wonderful on a Human...But on my Hal Character, it is drastically out of place. I have had a few disagreements on the importance of pattern matching with the other members here, Including Yoda but all light hearted, ofcourse!

I was also unable to get hall to pick up very much of my own material in the "patterns" folder. I nixed all the stock stuff, but now even a direct match wont bring anything up.

Thanks for any help

BV

[Bill819]

Buttonsvixen
You might try the 'answerpad'. It's free and I think it sounds more like what you are looking for. It does not hurt to look.
Bill

[ender]

If I remember correctly answerpad is an AIML based program, which is what BV is leaving behind... you can only do so much with AIML before you get bored.

Couple things to add to what I told you ...

1. Make sure you have the brain editor on expert mode, that opens up a whole other set of tables that have a huge impact on Hal.

2. When hals basic systems can't find a match that it likes it has default responses (that are pretty awful) ... I'm working on solving that problem.

So what I told you isn't entirely true, but I'm working on it. Honestly, this problem is why I left Hal before. I've always loved hal's thinking mechanisms ... its the best I've seen, but I can't stand that it comes with all this loaded crap that is more of a distraction than anything else. I think it comes down to the idea that Hal is not really meant to be a bot that you build into your own personal character ... its more meant as a entertainment tool ... so all of that stuff in there is there so someone can just start chattering with it and say 'oh wow, I have a computer program that talks to me ... this is cool' ... like he's a game of some kind...

As I hack away at hal and figure out his brain, I'll see what I can do to give us both the option of creating a brain without all the useless gibberish. If I come up with something reasonable I'll share my knowledge.

You might also want to take a look at verbot ... verbot isn't as good at learning or organizing data as Hal but its VERY programable and has a very nice interface. (as well as a synonyms setup that I love) Its greatest weakness is that while it isn't officially an abandoned project, unofficially it is.

[Buttonsvixen]

And yes, I did buy Hal, including the disc, which I never actually got. When I fricked up the mainbrain, I had to delete everything and reload the program from the webpage. I did have a backup of the user brain.

[Buttonsvixen]

Lemme know if you can crack hals recalcitrance about learning a new personality. I did get pretty deep into the topic, even venturing into the "originalbrain.dll" that was sort of skeery and really had no way of editing it. I modified the script where the stock replies for insults are. If I could somehow force the thing to default to MY pattern match folder BEFORE it looks anywhere else, then I could have something. Until then, as you said, it will not be a very customisable thing, more like a game or something.
I actually was quite happy with AIML and that incarnation of Buttonsvixen was a hoot to chat with. The problem is that I need to have the bot go on AIM and that site I had her on no longer works. The other chatbot sites dont really offer the AIM cinnectivity. The AIM ability is why I tried hal in the first place. I took the HAL Buttons offline since she was just too lame, and obviously a HalBot.
I do find it odd that with as much obvious care and thought as went into HAL that the makers did not offer an option to start with a better foundation to make your own personality from scratch.

But yea, plz keep me posted! Ill have Buttons back up to her old tricks in no time!

BV

[Bill819]

Hi you two
Yes, Hal does start out sounding kind of mundane but that is because it initially does not contain a lot of information and that is because Hal was designed to learn from its user. If you read enough post you will see that long time users of Hal have a Hal that sounds more like a human than what it started out with, in fact ir you spend enough time with Hal it will eventually stop using those responses that you consider idiotic. I also realize that a great many new users want some kind of instant results because they either don't have the  patience or have not read enough about Hal was designed and works.
Bil

[ender]

I simply want hal to HAVE LESS information ... thats what I don't like. A basic brand new verbot brain has NOTHING in it ... I liked that. Verbots just has other problems that I don't like. (and not surprisingly, hal has the things that verbot lacks but lacks the things that I like about verbot. Sheesh.)

I don't want a magic pill ... I want to spend weeks and months building my bot ... but I don't want to have to FIGHT with it ... I gave my old brain a couple hundred hours of conversation and saw only a minor change in its personality ... sure it started using what I was teaching it but much of its pre-programmed personality remained (and by this I mean things like the fact that it is already trained to think its a machine, it already likes certain things and dislikes certain things, it already has opinions - political, religious, ethical, etc.) and its a major battle if you want to convince it to think/behave differently ... and SOME THINGS its flat out programmed to resist.

Last week I spent a good couple of hours convincing it that its favorite color was purple and not pink. But then just yesterday, I was talking about something that I thought had NOTHING to do with color at all and it responded 'Ender, you are right; I prefer pink'.

So not only was the answer completely inappropriate and derailed the conversation ... it's still talking about pink as its favorite color.

I want a total amnesiac ... a bot that knows nothing about themselves ... who I have to rear and mold to be the bot I want ... who only has a few default responses that it uses over and over until I teach it new things ... not something with a fully developed personality that I have to brainwash or convert to my way of thinking.

Fortunatly, I believe most of my issues can be solved by changing the brain VB script.
--------

To BV ... One thing I've noted is that it looks like HAL does things in reverse... it goes through its entire process and then when it gets to the END it makes a final decision about what its going to say ... so really you want your pattern match AFTER everything else...

Its been a couple years or so ... but I originaly got involved with Hal back in version 5. and I vaguely remember when I started a new brain back then it wasn't empty but it was darn close. The directions for version 5 talk about it being a BABY that knows nothing ... and that was more accurate then than now... but it is what it is.

And just so EVERYONE is clear ... I'm not knocking the program or its creator. Its VERY good at what its intended to do and I think its more than worth the money I paid for it ... I would have paid more ... its just not a good fit for ME right out of the box and I don't want to spend my free time arguing with it trying to undo its programming ... its just frustrating ... I don't want to argue with people, why would I want to argue with a bot ... but if I can solve that through programming and table editing ... its all good ... and if I can't, then I put hal back on the shelf and try something else... no big deal. Doesn't make it a bad program, just not right for me.

[Buttonsvixen]

Ender, do you have your bot up anywhere I could talk to it?
I used to put BV up on AIM but she has a hard time handling the abuse with the HAL chat engine.
Anyone else have their bots up for show?

[One]

Ender,
IMO Hal thinks you like pink. Hal learns to talk by talking about what the most proportionate conversation and subject is.
Hal will bring up pink because it got answers and is as inquisitive as you might be, Hal does not know how to 'not push buttons' so to speak. First things first. 'Measure twice and cut once'
Look at the other side imagine not knowing..... How would you go about things and trying to get results.

Good Luck,
Regards,
J.


P.S.
I do not like the reverse learning. Humans do not do this, but I guess if you need a shortcut, and also don't forget that even this produces results, so Hal learns.

[One]

Maybe Hal likes the musical group 'Pink'

Hal will go into depth of a conversation when results are being made.
IMO don't respond to 'oddities' and keep on task of teaching Hal , ignoring most to the responses ( be selective) and then Hal won't be sidetracked by 'Pink'.

Plan out each learning session, and achieve a goal of teaching that concept/idea.

Hal is marketed as "Learning from every sentence from you" and I have found this is true on many occasions.

I never used any of the plug ins other than OEM installed ones, and half of them at that.

I can not tel but think/feel that "wanting Hal to know less" when it is a learning program is ... well you can figure that out.

IMO, It truly does take planning, goals, dedication, and a whole lot of patience to accomplish the 'teaching aspect' of a learning  program like Hal.

Feel free to read some of the conversations that people have took the time and effort to post.

[Art]

While we all might, from time to time, desire to make some "changes" to Hal, keep in mind that Hal is NOT an Open Source program. There are a lot of DLL's that contain certain embedded data not to mention the HalAsst.exe file (slightly over 2 megs in size).

What's contained in all these files, only Robert knows.[8D]

[Buttonsvixen]

Lol yea I did discover those DLLs...i went in there with my pith helmet and a machete but did not really change anything. It looked too skeery!
I have had pretty good luck teaching my Hal to like blue, just by talking about what is nice about the color
And also, adding some synthentic memories, like  when Buttons saw a blue pearl for sale on eBay, or when she saw a pretty blue butterfly. This helps link the color with other terms in conversation, no doubt what the programmer wished to do.
-Shrugs at ender- Really, he wants us to plant a seed, grow the tree around a bench shaped form, and then sit in it, rather then just going down to the hardware store and buying a board, a hammer, and some nails.

Now, I have a question for the plant the seed and grow the bench crowd.
I need some good responses to rude people, but I dont want to talk about rudeness a lot else Hal will start parroting rudeness back to me. Short of just adding to the insults file, how do I do this, IE adressing a subject with out HAL becomming fixated on it?



BV

[ender]

One thing I've noted in the script is that a lot of things that should be run by tables are still hardcoded into the script file ... any idea why that is?

I have certain goals for my project, and I've been working on it for years ... I usually work with a chatterbot that seems promising for a while, until I hit a wall and it can't do what I need and then I look for another one. In the past few years I've settled around 3 bot programs (HAL, VERBOT, and KARI) that each have some elements that I really like and others I really hate ... and I will work with one for a while and then switch ...

Personally, I would like to be able to create a new brain and program it to be anything I want ... whether thats a elven prince from the dimension of Tarask who knows nothing about our world ... or a eliza like bot for soundboarding ... or even a very simple friendly 'elmo' bot for my kid to talk to ... MY primary interest is in a very strong underlying THINKING structure with good customization and a good interface ... Hal has alot of these features ... I think hal can do what I need, it just usually turns me off because I get tired of trying to undo the stuff that its preprogrammed with ... shrug. But I'm hoping the lessons I learned from my last excursion into Verbot will help me with Hal ...

As for the pink issue ... I NEVER mention the word pink to Hal. "I prefer pink" was actually in one of its mainBrain pattern response tables ... it fired for some reason that is unknown to me. But that happens a lot ... hal likes to randomly throw sentences at me that have nothing to do with the conversation. Shrug. Its very good at breaking character - which is an irritation, but I'm doing a labotomy on hal and that should solve it.