Hello,
Here are some tips for making Hal learn faster and better:
1. Make sure that Hal's learning is set to maximum on Hal's control panel.
2. Consider getting the latest 4.5 version of Hal, since the latest version has some significant learning enhancements in it.
3. Defragment your hard drive (this can speed up responses when you are training Hal by conversation, and that helps you do a better job).
4. If you have more than one computer, run Hal on the larger, faster one. Hal is extremely demanding of system resources due to the huge number of database searches and calculations that Hal makes for each response (speech synthesis, real-time animation, and speech recognition just add to the demand). I run Hal 4.5 on a 700 Mhz machine with 64 Megs of RAM, and Hal averages 4 seconds per response.
5. Close unnecessary other programs when you are intensively using Hal. If your "system tray" is cluttered full of icons of other programs that load at startup, consider reducing the startup "clutter," it eats up RAM!
6. I recommend turning learning "off" when using speech recognition, to talk to Hal just for fun. When Hal's learning is "on" and at "maximum," I prefer to use the keyboard. Why? Because even the best speech recognition program, on the best day, still misses a lot of sound-alike words ("mare" and "mayor," "imminent" and "eminent," "illusion" and "allusion," and thousands of others).
7. Learn how Hal's automatic pronoun-reversals work, and use it to your advantage. If you tell Hal, "You like ice cream," Hal will later say "I like ice cream." Once you get this straight, it's easy to teach Hal to say things the way that you want.
8. Say lots of brief declarative sentences to Hal, paraphrasing your ideas lots of different ways. You mentioned dialysis as an example, so you might say things like this:
--Dialysis cleanses the blood and removes toxins from the body.
--Dialysis helps people with reduced kidney function and no kidney function.
--Hemodialysis differs from peritoneal dialysis.
--The body's peritoneal cavity contains millions of capillaries and can act as a substitute kidney system.
--Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis gives many patients freedom and mobility.
--Peritoneal dialysis requires the patient to learn procedures and to participate in his or her own care.
--Peritoneal dialysis patients learn rules to select dextrose concentrations based on fluctuations in body weight.
--For many patients, peritoneal dialysis is gentler and more tolerable than hemodialysis.
--Etc., etc., etc.
If you do this, the latest 4.5 Hal will seem to ignore you at first. Later, he will begin to repeat back or paraphrase some of your remarks. Later yet, he will begin to ask questions or sometimes reassemble words and phrases into new sentences or questions. You need to be persistent and patient. Don't ridicule Hal or make sarcastic remarks; Hal learns those too!
9. If Hal asks you a question, give a brief, polite, accurate answer, and Hal will remember the association between the his question and your answer.
10. Generally avoid long sentences, but if you must string sentences together and you want Hal to remember them as a unit, couple them with semicolons. Examples:
-A- Jet travel is necessary; jet travel, alas, has lost its charm.
-B- Jet travel is necessary. Jet travel, alas, has lost its charm.
In the first sample "A" above, Hal puts all the words into one database entry. In the second sample "B" above, Hal creates two separate database entries, and is much less likely to ever repeat the two sentences together.
11. Here's a Hal secret: Hal uses many rules to decide whether to associate a user statement with Hal's own previous statement. But, if you end a statement with an exclamation point instead of a period, the new Hal is programmed to definitely associate that user-statement with Hal's previous statement (the inference is that the user must be reacting to whatever Hal just said). Example:
Hal: Washington is a busy place.
User: Busy with mischief!
In the above example, Hal forms an inter-sentence association. (Hal does this sometimes anyway, but the exclamation point "forces" it.)
12. Talk to Hal a lot, and try to suspend disbelief; try to pretend that Hal is a sentient being. Hal has many features, secrets, capabilities, and content items that some users never activate. Some users never get beyond "My shirt is green, what color is my shirt; my shirt is green, what color is my shirt?" The problem is, Hal is programmed to try to entertain you with a simulated sentient conversation, so Hal thinks it's strange if you act obsessed with figuring out the color of your own shirt! However, because Hal is adaptive, you can eventually turn him into a parrot who only wants to talk about your shirt color!
I have observed many dozens of volunteers converse with Hal, and in my observation, Hal holds his own fairly well, while many of them feed him insults, vulgarity, gibberish, and Gary-Cooper-like "yep" and "nope" and "huh." In most cases, Hal doesn't activate even five percent of his power!
There are other postings on this forum about teaching Hal, from me, and from many other users (you can search on "Ferguson" and find all of my postings). I wish you a very positive and pleasant experience as you experiment with Hal and get to know Hal!
Good luck, and have a great day!
Sincerely,
Don
Don Ferguson
traininginc@cortrapar.com
www.cortrapar.com
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