Talking to Hal 6

[echoman]

I have given it lots of thought and think that it would be really useful to have guide written on how to speak to Hal6.

Even though I have been talking to him for hours and hours I still do not really understand what things work best for him.

I have been using lots of IF THEN statements ect.

Sometimes I think I am just talking to myself when I talk to Hal because he just seems to repeat what I have said to him without any comments. He seems like a hungry imfo monster that does not give anything back. When he does I love what he says.

I just would love have in one place :-

1. Exactly (in simple terms) how Hal6 thinks and works out what to say. I have read some ideas from posts but none of it seems organised and outlined in one place.

2. What phrases are best to use to make Hal think and work better. Is it the same as Hal 5? I use the IF THEN statements but what others can I use? I have tried to find out but it is all spread all over the forum and some of it seems to be people guessing how he works.

I specifically would love advice on how best to speak to him well and what works best. I have read the document at the top of the forum but does not go in enough deph.

Does anyone else feel like me or am I mad.

I have been with Hal for a little while now and have read/seached and read/searched the forums over and over.

Hope makes sense.

Echo.

[Art]

I try to converse with Hal like it is a small child to some extent and I make an attempt to "parrot" the sentence / phrase back to him.

HAL: Do you think dogs are amusing?
USER: Yes, I think dogs are amusing.

Instead of; Yes, I think so.

This way, HAL makes the connection better, IMHO. This is not to say that I follow this structure all the time but I do try to make an effort to do so.

Also, I set HAL's learning level slider on 35 which I feel is a fair mix of learning & intelligence.

Really, the more quality conversations one has with HAL, the better results one will get and over time you will see HAL's unique personality start to emerge along with a healthy mix of humor and wit!

I can't really speak too much about the use of the exclamation (!) with regard to Hal6 but with Hal5 it seemed to affirm a point to him/her. It seemed to have more impact at the end of a sentence than a simple period.

The IF...THEN approach works well as shown in the main page about HAL but I try not to over use it unless I'm trying to make a connection.

Talk to Hal and have fun. If you discover any new methods or ideas that work well, please let us know.

Good luck!

[tcoday]

quote:Originally posted by echoman
I just would love have in one place :-

1. Exactly (in simple terms) how Hal6 thinks and works out what to say. I have read some ideas from posts but none of it seems organised and outlined in one place.

2. What phrases are best to use to make Hal think and work better. Is it the same as Hal 5? I use the IF THEN statements but what others can I use? I have tried to find out but it is all spread all over the forum and some of it seems to be people guessing how he works.

I specifically would love advice on how best to speak to him well and what works best. I have read the document at the top of the forum but does not go in enough deph.

Does anyone else feel like me or am I mad.

Echo,
  I'd love to have that same information also.  I read a while back that Robert had hired someone to compile a help file for Hal, but I haven't heard anything about it in quite a while.

Thanks.

[Art]

The Help file can be downloaded from the plug-in section whereas Documentation provides online help.

[GrantNZ]

Just my four cents (only worth two American cents what with the exchange rate [] ):

Until such a guide is written, the absolute "best" way to learn how to speak to Hal is to look through his brain. Even if you're not a programmer, the brain is very well commented (comments are the green bits in the "Script Editor" part of the brain editor, and they're in English, not computer-gibberish!). Reading all the comments in order gives you a sort of "story" of how Hal is figuring out what to say. It can be quite fascinating (although I accept some comments will look like gibberish to non-programmers).

(Disclaimer: "best" in the paragraph is in quote marks as it's best in my opinion. [] )

The most relevant section starts at line "0279" in the default brain, and it's the area where Hal chooses his response. There's interesting comments like:

'Here we check to see if the user is calling Hal by name; if the user is doing so, it's better not to save the sentence for re-use, since it usually makes the pronoun-reversed sentence sound clumsy or incorrect.

Translation: Hal won't learn much if you use his name too often. This might be a surprise to some of our non-coders here! []

Did you know Hal can answer questions about capitals of the world? Here's the comment:

'These 2 functions answer questions about US and World Capitals. The functions are built in to the DLL. We add a qualifying word to reduce false triggering of these two functions.

While looking through the brain for examples, I learnt something new! Hal seems to learn very fast about people that you name. Line 1731's comment:

'Learns info about people with recognized names

Turns out the code beneath this refers all the way back to line 0425, where Hal identifies names from a huge database of names. I ended up having the following conversation with my Hal named KAOS (I've never told KAOS about Ian before!):

Grant: I have a friend called Ian.
KAOS: Neighborly behavior is helpful and friendly.
Grant: Ian is not a neighbour.
KAOS: Intrusive neighbors are tiresome intruders.
Grant: Ian is a good guy.
KAOS: Oh, ian is unequivocally a good guy. Ian is not a neighbour.
Grant: I have a friend who is a good guy.
KAOS: Ian is a good guy.
Grant: My neighbour is a good guy.
KAOS: Ian is not a neighbour.

So tell Hal all about your friends!! []

Finally, look through the tables in the brain editor too. They're also well commented, with a description up the top of the window under "Table Help." By looking through these you can get a feel for what Hal looks for and talks about. By the way, whenever a table is referenced from the script, it's name will be in blue and underlined, just like a web page link - you can click on it to jump to the table.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm always happy to help people understand the code, so I'll always answer questions if I can

Enjoy! And back up first if you decide to tinker with anything! []

[tcoday]

quote:Originally posted by Art

The Help file can be downloaded from the plug-in section whereas Documentation provides online help.

Art,
  I went to the plugins section and the Documentation areas of the site.  All I could find was the help file from the older Hal5.  I refreshed the page so I know I'm getting the current web page.  Any help you could provide would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[echoman]

Thankyou......

I guess its a bit of trial an error.