Deathmask,
Glad to have another eager explorer on the forum. You have some great questions. I wish I could answer them, unfortunately I can just confirm that I’ve had the same difficulties you’ve had.
I forget what is available on the free-ware, I splurged and got the full version and I’ve been working with that since. Can you open the Brain Editor? Can you begin new projects? I believe something was locked, but I can’t remember what.
I’ve had the same problems you’ve been talking about.
I started off with a simpler program: delivering a message.
I explained to Hal what I wanted to teach him something new. Hal is generally responsive when you explain that you are teaching him something.
Keep the steps simple and small and make sure that Hal understands all of the terms you are using in the context you are using them.
I explained to Hal:
1. You are my Personal Assistant.
2. A Personal Assistant delivers messages.
3. Remember a message and who the message is for.
4. Deliver any messages to the user you have when asked.
These four steps took me hours to explain to Hal. Finally I told Hal
A. I have a message for John.
B. The message for John is “Your sister called”.
Then I asked Hal “What is the message for John?” and “Do you have any messages for John?” It was not easy and I had to coax the message out of him asking exactly the right questions, but I eventually could get the messages.
My next experiment was to adapt the functions of the program in the Brain Editor.
I found (or should I say finally noticed) the “Main Keyword & Priority Brain” (Tools<Main Knowledge Database<Main Keyword…) - I though I’d found the Grail.
There it was – the tools I needed to script the program: Keywords, Supplemental text search criteria, “Not” requirements, Random responses, Priority level and – most importantly – the rabbit eared function names to accomplish key functions.
Granted I still need to understand them a lot better, but I was getting a better idea of how the program functioned.
I entered some forms in the “Main Keyword & Priority Bain” function.
Nothing.
The program did as you said; Hal compared the keywords in my input to the “Question & Answer Brain” instead of the “Main Keyword & Priority Brain”. I think that I found the comparison priority list in the VBScript, it would be nice to have a list from the programmer though.
Since that didn’t work I took the next logical step - taking one of the functions imbedded in the script and adapting it to react to new key words and respond from a new database of speech sections.
I began by isolating a function in the VBScript, in my case I used the “Insult” function. Once I had the function isolated I adjusted keywords which trigger the function and the triggered responses. This involves both adjusting the words recognized in the Script and the phrases in the insult banks (Tools<Emotional Topics<Insult detector; Insult database).
Make sure that everything you change follows the correct grammatical structure. It is very important to remember that the computer will only do what you tell it to do. In order to teach Hal anything you need to really understand it yourself. Hal has it in his program to flip pronouns and do other key grammatical changes. Saying certain phrases in certain ways will really confuse the program. I’m getting too heavy into details, maybe I’ll write some more on the details some time, but for now…
I wish I had better advice to give. However, like most of you, I’m just trying to plug my way through the program. I hope some of this has been helpful. Questions, comments or suggestions – keep in touch. Good luck to everyone.
WholyChao
