Conversational AI

Jacco Bikker · 2004-05-12T01:57:57

Hello, My name is Jacco Bikker, I'm pretty new to this forum. I am the author of WinAlice, a C++ version of Dr. Wallace's 'ALICE', with various extensions, such as moods. Usually I'm busy with mobile games and 3D stuff, but every now and then I want to create a virtual companion, or electronic offspring, or whatever, you know what I mean. My latest piece of software is an interpreter based on ideas used in ALICE: I believe natural language is merely a way to communicate, it encapsulates information in a way that is compatible with human means of data transport (esp. voice) while at the same time it's (almost) versatile enough to represent the thoughts that humans want to transfer. In this picture, language itself has nothing to do with intelligence, it merely is a link between two intelligent beings. The link itself can probably be simulated by a machine. This would open up the possibility of communication between a man and a machine, in a way that is most natural to the human. So I have been focussing at extracting information from language. My most recent attempt uses patterns and templates, like ALICE: Patterns to classify input sentences, templates to generate replies. ALICE uses wildcards, like DOS: * and ? for multiple or single characters. My pattern matcher uses much more complex syntax: Multiple wildcards can be used, optional parts, and selections, as well as if statements and variables (both regular and stacks). The template processor is even more versatile and supports reprocessing of (parts of) the input sentence, based on variables etcetera. It can even handle loops this way. So now I have this cool interpreter (I'll gladly post more detailed info if anyone cares, I'm even willing to share the source code), but I need a goal for it. I found that ALICE is ultimately a toy, as it does not persue any other goal than entertaining the user, or avoiding being detected as a artificial entity. Yesterday I found the goal. It's natural for a new being to be curious. So I want to make a curious entity. I want the software to check input sentences for words that it doesn't know yet, and I want it to ask questions about them. Things require definitions, actions require 'why' questions. I think a bot asking lots of questions would already be a huge improvement over the current situation, but it might get a bit too much, so I would also like the bot to look for information online: It could look up information using google, scan acquired text for more facts, and so on. The text it finds could very well contain things that it doesn't understand, and taht way, talking about a car one day could result in a question about airbags the next day. Of course it needs to store all this information. I would like to store information using a 'mind map'; every item would have links to an arbitrary number of other items. Every link is a relation of a certain type: 'has a', 'is a', 'knows' and so on. A relation can be unidirectional or bidirectional. A relation can have a weight. An item should have extra data attached too: The number of times the user used the data in the item, the source of the data in the item, the thrustworthyness of the data in the item and so on. This way, looking for new answers can start at items that are interesting, but not yet clear. Well that was a big rant. I'm quite enthousiastic about the idea myself, but I would like to hear opinions: Am I mentioning things that can't be done, do you have interesting additions? Right now, I have the pattern matcher, but that's it. I don't have the time to generate the 10.000 patterns for it that it probably needs for decent chatter, like ALICE. I think I found a good substitite for it, as the bot I just described would require relatively few patterns. OK, fire away. - Jacco (a.k.a. "The Phantom"). [edited by - phantomus on March 10, 2004 3:38:35 PM]

Artificial Intelligence Programming

Started by phantomus March 10, 2004 02:29 PM

47 comments, last by phantomus 19 years, 11 months ago

phantomus

741

Author

May 10, 2004 02:03 PM

Does JabberWacky use weights for links?

I was planning to use ''fidelity'' to each link; when a user says something that contradicts earlier links, those links are weakened. On the other hand, weak links that are confirmed become stronger.

I believe this is how humans gather info, and it should allow for unrestricted information gathering.

Jabberwacky

122

May 10, 2004 06:05 PM

quote:Original post by phantomus
Does JabberWacky use weights for links?

In effect it does, and it is certainly vital. Probabilities are determined in part by data redundancy. It also links words / sentences / threads / conversations together in ways that are non-obvious, and which I consider a trade secret!

Rollo

phantomus

741

Author

May 11, 2004 03:29 AM

'you consider a trade secret'?

Does that mean that I could try to get this info from you in a personal and purely scientific e-mail discussion?

BTW I'm going to check out how hard it is to put a blog on my website (www.bik5.com) for this project. Right now I make daily progress and as far as I'm concerned, it's open source.

[edited by - phantomus on May 11, 2004 8:27:42 AM]

Nice Coder

366

May 11, 2004 04:04 AM

Your website cannot be contacted at the present time.

Click here to patch the mozilla IDN exploit, or click Here then type in Network.enableidn and set its value to false. Restart the browser for the patches to work.

phantomus

741

Author

May 11, 2004 06:52 AM

Hm, you''re right, it appears that Apache is slightly confused. It might help to hit F5 a couple of times; I''ll check out what''s wrong when I get home.

Anonymous

May 11, 2004 07:03 AM

There''s a bug in your link.

phantomus

741

Author

May 11, 2004 07:27 AM

Oops. Fixed. Here it is again:
www.bik5.com

krez

443

May 11, 2004 07:21 PM

the damn thing kept arguing with me that i was a bot!

--- krez ([email="krez_AT_optonline_DOT_net"]krez_AT_optonline_DOT_net[/email])

phantomus

741

Author

May 12, 2004 01:57 AM

Kevin,

Brainhat.com is online again, but the doc you mentioned is gone... Could you perhaps e-mail it to me? You can reach me at jacco@bik5nospam.com .

- Jacco.

Conversational AI

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