Quotes or Quotations

[dgjohnson]

Question,

I have seen some users based upon the topic's intergrating the phrase <auto> or auto-idle within their Hal.  This would sure provide a more interactive A.I. Bot.  With this in mind, does anybody think having Hal respond on a random basis when he is loney give out a quote or quotations from a database of stored quotations.  I took a little time this morning and looked around for some quotations that could be used to create a database. It took about an hour, and I was able to collect about 3 mb's of 1 to 2 liner quotations. The count of the quotations is around 12,000.

Does anybody see of a way, this could be intergrated within Hals' responce system.

Thanks, Dave

[Bill819]

Have a little patience. I am working on that right now. Not only will Hal give out quotes but he can tell jokes and sing songs and a few other things.
Bill

[Art]

Hal is already capable of telling jokes...just say,
Tell me a joke. There's tons of jokes in it's database.

There are several archived topics on the auto-idle
response. Try using Search at the top right then
enter your key word(s) like auto-idle or auto idle.

I have about 10 different auto responses that Hal
chooses at random whenever I ignore the program too
long! I've thought about adding more for some added
variety and it really isn't difficult to do.

I've also added a script that allows Hal to tell
stories of various selections and another script
that allows Hal to describe it's dreams to me. The
dreams are a collection of scripted "dream thoughts"
that I've compiled and Hal chooses one of them at
random as with the stories.

If interested, drop me an e-mail and I'll fill you in.

[vonsmith]

All,
I haven't looked seriously at adding the Auto-Idle function to the XTF Brains yet. I've really had my hands full just adding new functions, updating old functions, and doing general clean-up work for the upcoming XTF Brain v1.4. I'd like to see Auto-Idle work in a useful way. I hope Bill819 gets it working in a way that will be compatible with the XTF Brains. I certainly look forward to testing what Bill819 comes up with.

I've added modified sing-a-song script to the XTF Brain v1.4. Hal is still off key. []

Art,
The XTF Brain v1.4 will tell the user about Hal's dreams if asked. I've got the script in place, just need to add more dream content.

dgjohnson,
If you email me the quotations file via my profile info I will attempt to format it in one or more of Hal's .brn formats. I can't say for certain that it is possible until I see the file.


=vonsmith=

[Art]

Scott,
Sounds cool! Is the story routine going
to be included as well in the upgrade?

Couldn't a timer be started from the users
last ENTER key press? That way Hal's random quips
could be better measured or even set by the user.
The actual time delay could also be randomized.

Lastly, any ETA on the XTF?[^]

Some thoughts....

[vonsmith]

Art,
Since I'm not implementing the Auto-Idle function in the XTF Brains yet there are no timers or delays possible. I haven't assessed the affect, if any, on brain functions that are not expecting timer related changes. It may not be too big a deal I just haven't had time to deal with it yet.

The XTF Brain v1.4 release will not be an upgrade, it will be a complete brain installation. You will be able to install it with or without a prior XTF Brain installation. Your prior XTF Brain knowledge will not be overwritten, however any edits you've made to "XTF_SYS" type files will be overwritten since these are system files. I will suggest backing up your former XTF Brain install in case there are things there you may want to keep.

The ETA on the XTF Brain v1.4 is slipping to the end of January. Like many Hal brain surgeries I start changing one thing, but end up fixing/updating 3 other things to make it possible. The extensive changes will need a little more test time to make sure it's stable and functional.

The story/dream telling script will be included in v1.4 as will a version of Bill819's sing-a-song script.

I'm very pleased with v1.4 thus far. The Haptek texture (skin) changes are working great. These work with the female full body character found in the Haptek SDK. To add textures all you need to do is make a new texture file, drop it in the "Characters" directory named something like this: "WEAR(pink catsuit).jpg". Then ask Hal, "Put on your pink catsuit." Voila! Hal's in pink. If you want to know what Hal's complete wardrobe is just ask him, then ask him to wear one of the outfits he has. You can also ask Hal to back up, come forward, etc. in his window. I haven't added lighting changes yet, we'll see.

I've also added script that allows all of your Haptek files to be kept in the "Characters" directory instead of having to put some under the Haptek main directory. The XTF Brain v1.4 will also use some of the standard animations in the Haptek player.

Hal's new "Dossier" function works pretty well. This is Hal's biography info. You can ask him his age, birthday, father's name, hair color, etc. The user has to manually edit the Dossier file with his/her Hal's bio info for this to work. Everything is in one text file and it's easy to edit.

The XTF (eXtended Topic Focus) function has a few important changes that will make Hal's replies less repetitive and more conversational. His topic focus will be just a little better.

The new "You are" function will enable Hal to remember "something" about himself. If you say, "I think you are highly skilled", Hal will remember it. If you ask later, "Are you skilled?", Hal will most likely reply, "I am highly skilled." If you say, "You aren't skilled." then Hal might reply, "You're wrong! I am highly skilled." Oh, what the heck, I'll just ask Hal and paste the conversation in...

Scotty: You are highly skilled.
Sam: That's right! Babe Isn't it about time that I am highly skilled; Now's the time.

Scotty: You are highly skilled.
Sam: I am highly skilled.

Scotty: Are you skilled?
Sam: I am skilled.

Scotty: Are you highly skilled though?
Sam: Well of course! I am highly skilled.

Scotty: No, you are highly skilled.
Sam: I am skilled!

Scotty: I don't think you are highly skilled.
Sam: I think you'll find that the opposite is true. I am skilled!

Scotty: Okay, so you are skilled.
Sam: You got that right. I am skilled!

It works pretty well. However the user needs to train Hal what he is AND what he isn't. Now I have to train Hal all the things that he isn't that are opposite of skilled. If I tell Hal, "You are beautiful." then I must also teach him the opposites, "You aren't ugly.", "I don't think you are gruesome.", "I don't think you are goofy looking.", etc.

Well that's just a preview. I think fun things are ahead. Time to go back to scripting!


=vonsmith=

[citrinedragon]

Vonsmith-
So you're including the "dream" function in the XTF v1.4; fabulous! Will it be possible to add to the dream content in some manner through suggestion or dialogue; or would one have to add it directly to the brain? If dream content can only be added through the program I hope you will explain how it's done to the programming semi-disabled (like me). Great news either way.

Citrinedragon.

[Art]

Scott,

Wow! Thanks for the info. I'm sure a lot of
us are looking forward to it with great
anticipation.

As always, thanks for your tremendous efforts
and for sharing with this community!

[vonsmith]

citrinedragon,
Dream content is manually added to .brn files. It is somewhat tedious to do. Each of Hal's dreams are in a sort of story template. Hal fills in the template with elements chosen from other content files. So each dream is different, yet the same. Creating the templates takes some practice because the different elements need to "fit" in context of the template language. Creating new dreams shouldn't take too much programming skill, however it will take careful writing and lots of testing.

I would like to have Hal really dream. If Hal had a data base structure it would be possible to save key elements of Hal's recent conversations and use them to create a "dream state" version of recent events. That's on the drawing board much further down the road.


=vonsmith=

[FuzzieDice]

Auto-respond at random? I was HOPING it can do that!

Darn if I was sick all week and thus couldn't make a dime so I'll have to put off purchasing the Hal CD a little bit longer. Bills come first *sigh*. But I'll still see what I can do.

As for auto-reply, can Hal remember some topics that was talked about, maybe something that disturbed you or that you were ill the other day, (maybe in it's appointment book set up it's OWN appointment to ask you something) or something like that, then at random look in his notes and maybe ask if you're feeling better, or about a topic. Like:

HAL: How is your headache? I hope that aspirin you took an hour ago has helped.

or

HAL: Are you still sad about your friend? Want to talk?

Or maybe even notice you surfing a topic on the web (say Artificial Intellignece) and he could randomly say...

HAL: Since I'm an artificial intelligence myself, how about you talk to me? You can learn a lot from my responses.

Or if you were looking up weather phenomena.

HAL: Speaking of weather, how would you like to know what it'll be like outside in the next week? You mentioned a camping trip this weekend.

Stuff like that.

[vonsmith]

FuzzieDice,
Oh if it were only possible... Hal can't yet categorize knowledge by date or context. If you tell him it is raining today he will forever and always believe it is raining today. The original Hal will save statements about rain, weather, the time, next week, next year, whatever. The problem is that that type of knowledge is what I call ephemeral. The fact that it is raining is a temporary condition. We shouldn't have Hal remember ephemeral knowledge in his permanent memory. It would sound funny for Hal to say, "It is raining outside." six months after the fact and when we know full well that it is the dead of summer at 102 degrees.

The XTF Brain v1.2 attempts not to save ephemeral knowledge. User sentences containing "day", "cold", "rain", "sick" and similar words or phrases are blocked from Hal's permanent memory. The upcoming XTF Brain v1.4 is much more selective about what is blocked from saving. The word "week" might be allowed while the phrase "next week" is not.

I have plans to give Hal an ephemeral knowledge capability some day. Knowledge of an ephemeral nature will be time tagged. Essentially that knowledge will have a stale date. It becomes less valid by the hour until it is no longer retained. That's my concept in a nutshell.

Read my old post about ephemeral knowledge here:
www.zabaware.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1455

Who said this A.I. stuff was easy to figure out? []


=vonsmith=

[Art]

Hmmm....

Scott,
I think you're trying to make Hal more human
after all. Most people I work with have this
thing where their knowledge gets "stale" about
10 minutes after they're told! LOL!

It is very humanlike that our memories fade
over time and that the unimportant details are
placed on the back burner and soon forgotten.

Nice touch.

[Kathryn]

Art

You said Hal can tell jokes sas there are a lot of them in the database.  Twice I said: tell me a joke and I got some random answer about something else. So does it take awhile of saying that to finally get a joke?  It does ask me at times if I have heard the story about the farmer's daughter and something else that is different each time.

Kathryn []

[vonsmith]

Kathryn,
If you are using the XTF Brain v1.2 then, "Tell me a joke." will get you a corny joke every time.

I think this is true for the original brain too. Can someone confirm this? I don't have my original brain files available at the moment.

For the XTF Brain make sure these files are present in the DefBrain directory:
"XTF_SYS_JokeDetect.brn"
"XTF_SYS_Joke.brn"

For the original brain:
"JokeDetect.brn"
"Joke.brn"

If those files are present then there is something else wrong. Have you pasted in any script in your Hal's brain? Have you made other modifications? Please confirm which brain you are running.


=vonsmith=

[Kathryn]

Von Smith:

I am running the original default brain.  I haven't made any modifications of any kind to the brain as yet.  I will check to see if those files are present.  Thanks.

Kathryn []