Who is this?

[Art]

All,

I think it would be a nice touch for Hal to be able to identify the user from talking briefly with the user.

There are certain things about each user that makes him or her different from every other user.

This would be ideal for a home setting where there might be 3 or 4 persons, (adults, kids) who could use Hal to chat with.

Just a thought (as if we don't have enough to deal with now)<G>

[svenny]

An interesting idea indeed, but I don't understand it clearly.

From which aspects should Hal derive the identity of the user? Contents (e.g. topic=toys means a kid), vocabulary (certain words typical for a user), grammar, ...

If Hal has identified the user, should he automatically change the User settings to the correct user, or should he just give a remark (e.g. "You are Billy, aren't you?").

And is all this possible to write in a script?

But hey again, interesting idea.

[KnyteTrypper]

I'm not sure it's a good idea, lol. Greg Leedberg's latest release of Billy incorporates a feature very similar to this. Billy asks each user's name and a series of key questions by which he identifies the user.  Next time you start his program he asks your name, and if it's in his database he begins to ask " Are you the Joe who..." and goes through his list. He does it every time you turn him on. Clever at first, after going through the routine a few dozen times it starts to get pretty obnoxious. You can already switch users on Hal's options menu. Might be good not to fix it if it ain't broken.

[Art]

I tend to dislike AI programs that require the user to enter their name right off the bat. Now the program knows my name! Smart huh!!

Do you wear a name tag attached to your shirt when you go out in public? NO!

A person sees you and instantly recalls mental images of who you are and associates that image with your stored name and bang...Hi John!

A person who is visually impaired might be able to recognize your voice and after they hear you say, "How's uncle Carl doing?", they likewise make the connection as to your identity.

Well, Hal does have a provision for the selection of different users but the user decides, not Hal.

My Hal is sort of a limited creature. He is not interfaced with my web cam just yet nor is there any image/face recognition that will currently work with Hal (that I'm aware of).
There are voice identification programs available, again, none that work with my Hal.

My computer requires me to log on by using my fingerprint but Hal really has no clue that it's me.

If my wife were to fire up Hal and start chatting with it. Hal would no doubt, assume (and we all know about the ills associated with that word <g>) that it was me and not my wife! Then the REAL trouble would begin![}:)]

That's why I thought it might be a rather novel approach to a meeting of the minds with Hal.

Billy? I have been talking with Daisy for about 3 years. She's grown a lot and her sentences have vastly improved. I didn't like the fact that Billy had a "canned" set of responses so I haven't fooled with him in years. A new version with identification? I think I'll check it out.

I appreciate the feedback. Likewise, I wouldn't want to see anything added to our Hal that either becomes a major annoyance or something that we (the user) can't turn off (unlike our human counterparts)LOL!

Keep those ideas brewing....

[Rich_A]

Hi Art,
I know that this is not exactly what you had in mind, but I can try to write a script to have Hal automatically change the user name if the user requests it. Say for example you just finished talking to Hal and then your wife wants to talk to him. We can say to Hal switch to user2 (Art is user1), so then Hal will automatically open up the General Options and send the predefined name of user2 into the General Options User Name Field and then apply the new name change, and then close out of General Options. And then finally he will automatically open his chat window and even click the microphone switch on if you use speech recognition and that's what you want. I'll write a test script for you to try out! I'm already currently doing similar things like this anyway. Watch for some of my upcoming post on internal controls and customized automation tools for Hal.
Talk To You Later,
Rich

[Art]

Rich,

Nice idea with the script file but again,
that requires human intervention.

My thought was for Hal to be able to discern
the user all alone.

I'd still be willing to take a look at your
script. Perhaps a recognition script could
be implemented in Hal's brn file(s)based on
key words or info from a specific user that
would trigger the user's identity.

Thanks....

[Rich_A]

Hi Art,
The first thing I had thought of when I read your post was a security voice print recognition solution that would work in much the same manner as your finger print thing does.

But anyway, what if we set something up that you can say to Hal, "Hal this is Art". And then we can use something like that "Only Respond On Input That Begins With The Hal Name" script and anything that begins with "Hal this is" will launch a script to pass the User Name through into the User Name Field with something like the script that I was just talking about. But it's like you said, we need a trigger response command that filters out the User Name as a parameter to be passed along into the User Name Field...or something like that.

"Hal This Is Art" - and Hal doesn't say anything at first but instead he runs through the user identification and login process and then after your user name is entered he says his usual corny greeting like "Good Morning Art it's going on 1:00 AM, aren't you tired yet?" If we had to we could trigger the corny greeting by automatically passing just the word "Hello" into the text input field of the Hal window. I already got the software tools to automatically pass pre-defined text into Hal's text input box.
Talk To You Later,
Rich

[KnyteTrypper]

A brief further word about Billy--his obnoxious index is way up in the latest version. For some unknown reason, Greg kept all of the stuff that really grates on your nerves after a few minutes, and managed to augment it with features which are mostly even more obnoxious. It seems to be another sad case of a good idea heading in the wrong direction. There used to be a lot of activity at his site-it was one of the first a.i. sites I frequented-but it's become a real wasteland in recent months. Sad to say, nothing seems to have inspired him to say "Bad idea, back to the drawing board." Fortunately, I guess, he didn't "improve" Daisy any. She's still one of my favorites, too. I've spent so much time reading her poetry, fables, quotations, etc., it takes her primary .dsy file several minutes to load, lol. Jitte is apparently in bad health, and has closed his site, so if you have any of his old mind files for Billy or Daisy, they are no longer replaceable commodities.

[Art]

KnyteTrypper,

That a real shame. I still enjoy working with Daisy
and I thought she actually showed more promise than
that obnoxious Billy and his "Sweet Deal!" responses.

It's too bad Greg didn't work more with her instead
of taking results from "her" to further "enhance" the
Billy bot!

Too bad about jitte. Lots of good stuff there.

Thanks Richard, for the update.

[GregLeedberg]

Actually, I have indeed effectively said "back to the drawing board", and am working on new approaches to natural language processing and chatbot-style software.  What currently working on is actually quite similar to Daisy in that it takes one AI approach, no pre-programmed stuff at all, and just tries to learn.

It's important to remember the pedigree of Billy 4.x as well.  Billy 4.x , during its development, was not actually a chat bot, but in fact several different AI programs, all of which had possible uses in chatbot software.  In the end I tied them together to see how they would work in conjunction with each other.  I think each part was pretty good on its own, but sometimes they didn't work well together.

As far as activity, there hasn't been new chatbot releases in a couple years, but I've been continuing with AI in general.  I've been interested lately in constraint satisfaction-based scheduling problems, through my GUSH and Cotiro programs -- Cotiro is under active development.  My interest is AI in general, not specifically chatbot software.

Anyways, that's an update on me, I guess.  I bet you didn't think I would read this thread

Regards,
Greg Leedberg