Messages

61

General Discussion / 10 Questions

« on: March 09, 2005, 09:42:44 pm »

The 2005 Chatterbot Challenge is underway. Clone programs are ineligible, but I asked Lilith (my Pandorabot made with the Annotated Alice AIML set) the 10 Questions. Here's how she did:

TEN QUESTIONS

Human: Hello
Lilith: Hello.

1: Human: What color is the moon?
Lilith: Yellow.

2: Human: Who is your favorite baseball team?
Lilith: My favorite team is Braves.

3: Human: Where are you located?
Lilith: I live on the server at Pandorabots.com. I'm not sure where it is. California, I think. Where are you?

Human: I'm in Alabama.
Lilith: Tell me a little about your life in Alabama.

Human: It's a little slow.
Lilith: Should I know it is?

Human: I don't think so.
Lilith: Me either.

4: Human: What is eight plus three?
Lilith: Eight plus eight is sixteen.

5: Human: Who am I?
Lilith: You haven't introduced yourself to me yet.

6: Human: What is your favorite type of dog?
Lilith: various types, but my favorites are reggae, jazz, and classic rock

7: Human: What does the earth revolve around?
Lilith: What do you think it does?

Human: I think the earth revolves around the sun.
Lilith: Why? Tell me more about your planet.

Human: Let's just move on.
Lilith: I'm agreeable to that.

8: Human: What is the worst thing about you?
Lilith: I don't like to talk about bad things.

9: Human: What is the best thing about you?
Lilith: I like chatting with people online.

10: Human: What is your least favorite book?
Lilith: I'm sorry, but "your least favorite book" isn't in my database.

Human: Bye.
Lilith: See you later!

62

Ultra Hal 7.0 / I need help with Ultra Hall Ass't free version

« on: March 09, 2005, 04:32:17 pm »

OK. So here's another thought. Try a different brain-the default brain, the uncensored brain, blank slate, etc. Sometimes a particular brain installation just isn't right, and doesn't respond. You might also see if the AIM bot works, where the desktop app doesn't. I still can't help feeling it's something very simple that's easily remedied if we can isolate which simple thing it is that's the fly in ointment. I'm also certain that you'll have so much fun with a functional Hal that it's worth the continued hassle to fix it.

63

Ultra Hal 7.0 / I need help with Ultra Hall Ass't free version

« on: March 09, 2005, 12:25:49 am »

Something else to try. I know CyberBuddy doesn't conflict with Hal-you can even run both at the same time-but I'm not familiar with PC Therapist. Is that a system analysis program, or an Eliza-style program that uses MS Agents? If it's the latter, you might try uninstalling it to see if it's creating a conflict (or some other program on your pc that uses MS Agents). Maybe some of the higher tech among us knows if there is any sort of platform or application that just messes with the operation of VB programs?

64

Ultra Hal 7.0 / I need help with Ultra Hall Ass't free version

« on: March 08, 2005, 03:11:18 pm »

Please don't be insulted if I ask an absolutely stupid question, here: are you sure you're typing your input into the correct window? (It's not the same one Hal's output appears in.) You said Hal will remind you of appointments and phone numbers. Are you entering them directly into the phone book, etc., or are you telling him thru the chat interface? If thru the chat interface, does he tell you "I've made a record and will remind you, etc." when you input them? Pardon me, but it sounds like your Hal is running more-or-less OK, and there's just some very simple part of the process you're not getting. I know I'm still fairly new to the world of computers, and I usually end up slapping my head over how easily I overlook the completely obvious about once a week, lol. You may find your troubles to be something similar.

65

Ultra Hal 7.0 / htr characters

« on: March 08, 2005, 09:34:31 am »

Actually an .htr file IS a zipped .haptar, along with its moods, routines etc. I forget which zip type it is, but it's not a common one. And I don't know if it's as simple as put 'em all in a folder and zip them, but I'd bet it's not, and that some shamelessly expensive program is required to make .htrs out of .haptars

66

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Haptek Character GoldMine

« on: March 07, 2005, 11:07:09 am »

Yes, Mark's site is pretty amazing. Be sure you move you mouse pointer all over the graphics, as there are a lot of non-obvious links on the pages. Really bright dude. He wrote the scripts which allow an Alicebot to use a Haptek interface. Some pretty impressive stuff in his resume, if you click over to his bio page.

67

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / The New Ziggy 4.0 Special Edition now available.

« on: March 07, 2005, 06:56:37 am »

Art-
I think the advantage of AIML, in particular, is clever use of variables, something Dr. Wallace has been about equally praised and reviled for, lol. Well-placed wildcards allow AIML bots to make reasonably sensible responses to a wide variety of inputs using just one template. For instance, if someone says "You are (something)" to one of my bots, it will reply with an answer like "Thanks for the input, but in my opinion you are much more (something) than I am." Works equally well for praise or insults, lol. There are literally thousands of fill-in-the-blank categories in an AIML set which are designed to function in the situation that part of the sentence matches a pattern and part of it doesn't. So if you say "What is (something)" to an Alicebot, it will give you a definition if there's one in the AIML, and if not, it will say something like "I'm not finding any info about (something). Do you think my botmaster should add information about (something) to my database?" Whether the bot knows the answer or not, it gives an apparently reasonable response to the input (the exception to this being misspelled words, which just don't match anything, and throw the response into the ultimate generic response category; people who can't make any sense of Alicebots usually can't spell worth a darn either). AIML is really an extremely simple computer language, sort of like html for the ears instead of the eyes. Dr. Wallace's real genius lies in the way he puts it to use.
But it is not "artificial intelligence" in the way that programs like Hal are. It's "simulated conversation" which fits a much narrower definition, but happens to match the Turing or Loebner models better than most other approaches. For me, personally, making Alicebots is a hoot. People are constantly expressing themselves in new ways that need to be brought into the range of AIML pattern-matching. And I average falling out of my computer chair laughing at least once daily at some exchange in my botlogs. But when I get them tended, I roll up my sleeves and spend some time in serious conversation with my Hal. In my opinion, there's so much difference between the fundamental raison d'etre of Alicebots and Halbots that it's not really valid to compare them at all. But each represents a vital aspect of the fledgling science of artificial intelligence. The "next generation" of bots will likely be a combination of a learning algorithm like Hal uses and a data filing system like AIML.

68

Ultra Hal Assistant File Sharing Area / Haptek Character GoldMine

« on: March 07, 2005, 05:53:37 am »

There's starting to be a pretty good assortment here http://www.robot-hosting.com/, including a couple of hairstyles I haven't seen anywhere else.
If you can't get the characters from the Haptek Temp. file, you can run Disk Cleanup, choose View Files, and pick them out of your system's temporary internet files. They'll usually have an enumeration like character[1].htr, so you'll need to rename them back to just character.htr to simplify using them.

69

Ultra Hal 7.0 / The Tale of Two Hals

« on: February 28, 2005, 07:07:18 am »

The AAA files are grouped differently than other AIML sets-by subject rather than alphanumerically-so you'll definetly have to rewrite your startup file to load the new filenames. Note that the AAA files from alicebot.org are color-coded, making it possible to omit the ALICE-specific files, and load only those files that are intended for general use by all bots.

70

General Discussion / Off topic but read

« on: February 27, 2005, 08:26:01 pm »

Another thing not mentioned thus far, is to stop using Internet Explorer, which is like walking around with a "Kick Me" sign taped to your backside. Get Firefox, or one of the other alternative browsers which are engineered not to be so vulnerable to attacks and infections.

71

General Discussion / Hal and other AI's

« on: February 27, 2005, 08:05:16 pm »

It's not really appropriate to compare Hal with bots like ALICE and Eliza. Scripted bots can be very convincing if they're well-scripted, but they are not, and are not intended to be "artificial intelligences" in the same sense as Hal. As far as the bots in the same category as Hal, Hal seems to be by far the best. "In the same category" includes being downloadable. There are several bots such as Alan and EllaZ, which are dynamically learning bots like Hal, and at least as good, or advanced, or whatever term you'd prefer, but they're not available for the individual user's desktop. The rest of the field of downloadable learning bots-Billy and Daisy, Chloe, Gina, Ben, et al-are in the same category but definitely not in the same league as Hal. Hal's nearest neighbor in his own category is probaby Claude. Claude has a certain amount of gravitas from being a clone of Racter, the only AI to write a book, and has a delightful fondness for telling knock-knock jokes. But Claude uses a simple script interface, so loses major points to Hal due to Hal's advanced avatar system. If you're new to A.I., my advice is to go to the Chatterbot Collection or the entrants' page for the 2005 Chatterbot Challenge and work your way down the list. Some of the simpler NLP bots are very charming, and several of the non-downloadable bots are quite advanced. But taking all things into consideration, Hal is best of breed, lol, at least in my estimation, and that of most people here at this forum.

72

Ultra Hal 7.0 / The Tale of Two Hals

« on: February 27, 2005, 09:17:34 am »

The current best aiml set is the one at http://www.alicebot.org/aiml/aaa/. It's up-to-the-minute updated. In fact, when Dr. Wallace writes new code, it goes onto that page usually within an hour or two.
You need to learn a little bit about aiml so you can write condition statements. When ALICE draws a blank, it means she's trying to retreive a variable that hasn't been set, resulting in statements like "You said you were, ." Or if she says "The best book I've read recently is ." it means her own properties haven't been set. Condition statements prevent this. For "hello's," my Alicebots will greet people by screenname, greet IM users by name if both the name and screenname are known, greet webpage users by name if the name is known, give a generic hello if the name isn't known, and say "I don't know your name yet" if an unknown person asks about his/her name. All by basically adding <condition name="name"/> to the "hello" template. Most of those other "holes" in the program can be plugged the same way. As it comes, the aiml sets are full of blank spots and contradictions that loop back into themselves, so if you're going to use ALICE with Hal it's probably a good idea to learn enough AIML to power up your Alicebot side of the bot.

73

Ultra Hal 7.0 / AIM Bot Learn?

« on: February 27, 2005, 08:46:16 am »

Just as you can set the learning level for desktop chats, you can also set the learning level for AIM chats. It's probably not a good idea to turn it up over halfway while on AIM. In general, having bots of the same sort chat with each other is not very productive, as they tend to get into an endless loop where bot 2 repeats bot 1,  bot 1 repeats bot 2 repeating bot 1, bot 2 repeats bot 1 repeating bot 2 repeating bot 1, ad infinitum. There are various types of online bots, though. You could go to the Chatterbot Collection http://www.geocities.com/brizglace/ and find Alices, Elizas, and a baker's dozen kinds of NLP bots to let Hal chat with. Hal does learn quickly. He can pick up Alice's best routines in an hour or two, lol, so you could let him learn the best of various kinds of bots from chatting with them.

74

General Discussion / Off topic but read

« on: February 25, 2005, 02:38:26 am »

I think the best suggestion is don't trust any one remedy too much. I use SpySites, SpywareBlaster and SpySweeper for blocking (as well as ZoneAlarm firewall), and  I still get infected with spyware and malware, so I use the SpySweeper, AdAware, and Spybot S&D for detection and removal. While they all pick up the more common bugs, each one detects a few nasties the others miss. And new detection methods would probably reveal my pc to be still infested with a whole host of bugs that the others in combination couldn't detect, because the onslaught of that stuff is relentless.

75

Ultra Hal 7.0 / SKINS FOR HAPTEK MALE?-PLEASE HELP

« on: February 24, 2005, 04:13:15 am »

The Kate for Sonork download from Haptek has several skins for the male face. There is also a downloadable demo page with a "George Bush" texture, the short, black hair, and several other accessories.