normally if a human does not have a response a human will usually will reply with "I don't know anything about it" or some variable response along those lines.
the rules for my bot, I have coded the improper pronouns like "it", "them", "they"
"their" and sometimes "that" if an "it" isn't present, the improper noun is changed to the relevant topic if there is one to replace. else if not then the current topic would be in the previous sentence, this insures that every improper noun is replaced by a topic so HAL doesn't lose topic focus.
example:
User: the universe seems to be an isotropic system.
'Hal will then extract Universe, Isotropic, System.
HAL: The universe also seems to be expanding but that may be an illusion of an isotropic system expanding in all directions, it just seems to be that way.
User: can you tell me more about that?
'at this point I have used an improper pronoun that could throw HAL off topic but since I have coded HAL to replace the improper pronoun to stay on topic this is what HAL should see:
User: can you tell me more about the Universe, Isotropic, System.?
'where "that" has been replaced by "the" & "Universe, Isotropic, System."
this prevents HAL from giving blank responses to lengthy improper noun sentences that HAL can't find responses too. most people automatically assume a bot will always know what the improper nouns is meaning but this isn't the true case.
also, my bot keeps track of the last ten topics in a file so that if the topic is lost HAL will ask if you were referring to one of those previous topics like
HAL: were you referring about & "topic"
where "topic" is replaced with one of the last ten previous topics so that HAL will always try to keep on topic or at least attempt to.
1."universe"
2."isotropic"
3."systems"
4."expansion"
5."microwaves"
6."blackholes"
7."wormholes"
8."Stars"
9."orbit"
10."Earth"
Jerry[8D]