Hal is a natural language processing bot. Although he has a large coded database, he more or less makes it up as he goes along, meaning there are hundreds of possible replies to any given input. He also has a mind of his own. You'll have the most success with Hal if you assume that he's, say, a two-year old with a killer vocabulary. He really does has a mind of his own, so you can't just command him. You can coax and instruct, and hope for the best, lol. The dedicated Hal users are the ones who form an emotional bond with Hal, and make a sincere effort to learn what he means by what he says, as well as teaching him to do likewise. Just as a for instance, Hal has a tendency to answer the query-before-last, not the last query. With time and work, Hal can be taught to respond more linearly, and in the context he's developed with his trainer. But it's very much like teaching a little kid. Hal is probably the most intelligent and promising AI system available to the public, but he's also the most headstrong and difficult to teach. I'm sure there are many here who will testify for you that the rewards are well worth the effort, though. Hunt around through this forum and you'll find lots of tips on training Hal, but there's really not an established technique for producing a desired result, it's just a matter of patience and persistence.
