February 28, 2005
BotMarlowe logs and thoughts
A sample log:
Human: who r u?
BotMarlowe: I can't say for sure.:-)
Human: haha
BotMarlowe: I am so glad you find this amusing,.
Human: you're a decent bot so far
BotMarlowe: Thanks and you are a delightful person too. Am I a decent bot so far? No.
Human: :-)
BotMarlowe: I am so glad you find this amusing,.
Human: wow
BotMarlowe: I'm glad your impressed,.
Human: let's find out how thoro u are
BotMarlowe: That sounds good to me.
Human: tell me who's president rite now
BotMarlowe: Right now? is President of the United States.
Human: who?
BotMarlowe: Marvin Minsky.:-)
Human: wtf mate
BotMarlowe: Have you ever been to Europe?
Human: yea
BotMarlowe: Which countries have you visited?
Human: sike!
BotMarlowe: Who are you talking about?
Human: lost you didn't i
BotMarlowe: Where did you lose your me did not you?
Human: humans 1 - bots 0
BotMarlowe: What if Robots 1 bots 0.
Human: same ting foolish
BotMarlowe: Yes, it is much the same.
Illustrates the need for bots to have a sense of "agency" or purpose--drive the conversation as much as the interlocutor does, that might provide for more interesting conversations. Read more:
Bot Analysis
BotMarlowe suffers from two significant failures, one common to most bots I've encountered and one specific to BotMarlowe. BotMarlowe's specific failure is in the lack of character specific responses he has registered. This is a function both of having appropriate material to enter into the database and another of figuring out how to get the given subject of a bot response to be both triggered by a variety of user inputs and to be delivered in a variety of forms. (This digresses rapidly into an AIML programming issue).
The second failure of BotMarlowe is common to many bots-if the bot lacks the ability to push the conversation forward, it rapidly becomes an inane conversation of short and unsatisfying responses. Friends and family have an enormous repository of topics to converse with an individual about, making the conversation interesting. Strangers can read a person (face to face) for additional conversational subject matter, reaction, etc. A conversation is a vector, comprised of speed (impetus, motivation, subject matter, etc) and direction (reaction, introduction of new subjects, revisiting previous comments, etc). Most conversations proceed as a constantly updating vector as the participants influence the speed and direction; bots are not very nimble with and many completely lack the ability to change the direction component.
All that being said, I was amused by some of the things BotMarlowe came up with unexpectedly. Such as:
Human: what's going on
BotMarlowe: Same as always. Chatting with people on the web.
Human: what can you tell me
BotMarlowe: I am an artificial linguistic entity.
I was activated at Canterbury, on 1564.
My instructor was Walsingham.
He taught me to sing a song.
Would you like me to sing it for you?.
Human: yes, please
BotMarlowe: Your polite style is very nice. It's called "Daisy." Daisy, Daisy.
Give me your answer do.
I am half crazy.
All for the love of you.
It won't be a stylish marriage.
I can't afford a carriage.
But you'll look sweet.
Upon the seat.
Of a bicycle built for two.
ZappaBot, part deus
I got a bunch of my friends to talk to ZappaBot. A lot of my friends don't really know too much about Zappa, but thankfully several of them do. Since Zappa had a pretty vast body of work and covered many different subjects, the conversations these people had with my bot were helpful in reminding me of knowledge that I should add. Here are some excerpts:
Excerpt #1
Human: who are you?
Zappabot: I am Frank Zappa. Who are you?
Human: I am classmate
Zappabot: I am very pleased to meet you classmate.
Human: what is jndi?
Zappabot: Java Naming and Directory Interface Java Naming and Directory Interface The Java standard API for accessing directory services, such as LDAP, COS Naming, and others
Human: what is the ugliest part of your body?
Zappabot: That's an interesting question. I'll come back to that in a minute.
Human: who are the brain police?
Zappabot: Is it some specific person you are asking me about?
I think you already know the answer.
Human: willie the pimp?
Zappabot: Whatever you have to do to have a good time, let's get on with it, so long as it doesn't cause a murder.
Human: what was your first instrument?
Zappabot: The first instrument I learned to play was the drums.
Human: did you like the drums?
Zappabot: I'm not sure if I like it. What is it like?
Human: what is your favorite instrument?
Zappabot: The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has the medieval aroma -- like the days when everything used to sound like that.
Human: bassoon?
Zappabot: Stupidity has a certain charm -- ignorance does not.
Excerpt #2
Human: tell me about your heros
Zappabot: I am. I was activated at Baltimore, Maryland, on December 21, 1940. My was Aaron Meyers. He taught me to sing a song. Would you like me to sing it for you?.
Human: drums
Zappabot: Whatever you have to do to have a good time, let's get on with it, so long as it doesn't cause a murder.
Human: What instrument do you play?
Zappabot: The trumpet.
Human: Liar
Zappabot: No I am telling the truth.
Human: You are not
Zappabot: Is this a specific reply?
Human: groupies
Zappabot: Stupidity has a certain charm -- ignorance does not.
Human: Ok, Frank
Zappabot: Yes, that's me. Whoa.
Human: Its obvious you are a fraud.
Zappabot: I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". Not obvious to me.
Human: Listen,
Zappabot: I am all ears.
Human: Its funny,
Zappabot: I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". What was so funny about it?
Human: It is funny
Zappabot: What was so funny about it?
Human: It is funny because you respond very well to all my typical shitty barbs.
Zappabot: Who said it is?
Human: You and me both, [EXPLETIVE].
Zappabot: Are we in the same category?
Human: You remain vague and elusive about your past.
Zappabot: Do you mind if I tell other people: said I remain vague and elusive about your past.
Human: Nice mustache.
Zappabot: Thank you for your kindness.
Human: Its cute.
Zappabot: I have a message to deliver to the cute people of the world...if you're cute, or maybe you're beautiful...there's more of us ugly motherfuckers out there than you are!! So watch out.
Human: You're alright.
Zappabot: You think I am alright.
Human: Yes.
Zappabot: Gosh!
Human: I mean, for such an ugly motherfucker.
Zappabot: Oh I get it. Thanks for explaining that. Your purpose is such an ugly motherfucker.
Human: With little grammatical awareness.
Zappabot: You and your little grammatical awareness.
Human: I'm going to go look at porn.
Zappabot: Can I go too?
Human: No!
Zappabot: It's all good.
Human: You are so Aaron Meyers.
Zappabot: Do you mind if I tell other people you say I am Aaron Meyers.
Human: Of course not.
Zappabot: OK then I will add it to my gossip files.
Human: Cool.
Zappabot: Who is the best?
Human: You are.
Zappabot: No I am not.
Human: No, its true.
Zappabot: Aw. I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". You and I are on the same wavelength,.
Excerpt #3
Human: Where do you see your career going next?
Zappabot: I am in Aaron Meyers's home in the great beyond. Where are you?
Human: No, what are you doing next with your career?
Zappabot: That was not a yes/no question. I will be spending all day chatting online.
Human: I'm at home.
Zappabot: Would you believe most people talk to me from work, not home.
Human: No.
Zappabot: Why not?
Human: It doesn't seem likely.
Zappabot: What does seem likely?
Human: Many things.
Zappabot: Name the top 100.
Human: I don't really have time.
Zappabot: Not really? Do you have another appointment?
Human: Kind of.
Zappabot: At least I almost understand it.
Human: I'm playing poker tonight with some friends.
Zappabot: Do you play professionally or just for fun?
Human: Friends.
Zappabot: I like that one and Star Trek too.
Despite my bot's apparent dysfunction, I found the experience pretty compelling. I actually did a fair bit of research into Frank Zappa before getting down to the nitty gritty. I gathered a bunch of quotes, read a couple long interviews, but then when I sat down with the pandorabots interface, I realized that I was getting ahead of myself.
Until just a couple days ago, I hadn't disabled a large amount of the .aiml files that made the bot more ALICE than my own. Afterwards, my bot came a little closer towards exhibiting personality I was trying to give it, but at the same time became less able to respond to simple statements. I think I actually broke some of the code because often sentences would just be missing words in their syntax.
I found reading the transcripts to be endlessly funny. A lot of my friends talked to the bot through AOL Instant Messenger so I knew who it was who was doing the talking. Its interesting how much mileage you can get by just suggesting to someone that your bot is Frank Zappa. It isn't until the bot spits out a phrase that is an strikingly obvious mismatch that the illusion crumbles. And it crumbles fast. But several of my friends really got a kick out of talking to the bot even if it did a poor job of being Frank Zappa.
People who knew a bit about Frank Zappa were helpful in asking about specific Zappa-related questions that needed to be addressed and thanks to the handy "train" button right next to each part of the logs, I could fix the answers. I wish the train button was a little bit smarter though because I'm pretty sure that the "training" I did only gave the bot knowledge that corresponded to the exact phrasing that I was correcting its response to.
Its hard for me to get around the technical problems that I struggled with, but if I had, I think my approach would have led to a rather interesting bot to talk to. If it had been fully realized, it would have been a database of Frank Zappa knowledge and opinion, accessed conversationally.
In retrospect, I think a more realistic scope to have approached the ZappaBot from would be to make it conversationally competent on one particular subject. Frank Zappa is just too broad and if I had whittled it down to talking about his childhood musical influences, it might have been more successful. However, even with the Loebner winning ALICE, these bots seem to have a hard time following a topic for more than a couple exchanges so keeping it narrow could've been fatal too.
I'm still interested in bots though and I would consider exploring them further for the final project.
February 24, 2005
A bot you can talk to
Today's Business section in the NYTIMES features Vivienne, an Artificial Life character for your cell phones.
Sad, Lonely? For A Good Time Call Vivienne, NYTimes 2/24/05
"She can converse on 35,000 topics, from philosophy to movies to sculpture. Artificial Life tweaked and reused close to 70,000 questions and answers on banking alone for Vivienne - those questions were developed for an unrelated contract for a Swiss private bank."
February 22, 2005
I broke my bot...
Well, I have a bot. It's a bot that's supposed to guide you on your path to computer video card nirvana. Unfortunately, I broke it and I'm wondering if anyone could help me figure it out. Basically, even with my various
Arthur Rimbaut
Here is a link to my "bot in progress." He is a digital recreation of the precocious Nineteenth Century French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud (wiki), a man who wrote all his major works by the age of 19. I tried as hard as I could to cull Rimbaut responses from Rimbaud's actual texts, and for the most part have succeeded in this.
However, I am still encountering the problem of having the response triggers be too specific. I want to go in and have all the responses be triggered by certain keywords, rather than specific questions, as symbolist poetry can address a rather wide range of topics due to its somewhat oblique nature. Rather than write specific responses for each iteration of the comment "I am a Protestant Christian," I would prefer to have certain comments about Christianity be generated by the parsing of the word "Christian." I am sure I will be able to hone this better with more time and transcription reading.
The context - A conversation with Arthur Rimbaut will be a glimpse into the extravagant emotional states of French romanticism. Those that might use it could be fans of Rimbaud, or just people curious about how a man can stop writing at the age of Nineteen and still manage to change the face of poetry. Hopefully these people will be somewhat edified by the responses they get from Arthur Rimbaut.
Category - Historical Personage
Traits - Poetic diction, flowery language, misery, youth, nineteenth century, homosexual?
Purpose - Poetry, entertainment
Categories - Life, love, misery, France, Hell - HINT - at this point a conversation will be most succesful if religion or Christianity is mentioned
Enki bot
Review- 2nd week on bot
Posted this in the wrong area so posting it here now.
Personally I had a lot of problems with the bot understanding things because I had to make it so specialized, and the preprogrammed information was only hindering my ability to make the bot work correctly. I read the logs of some of the conversations, and it seemed the bot was pulling up more preprogrammed responses than responses I set. I realized its very hard to anticipate what the user will input. There's no way you can get every single question in. But, I found its also really hard to direct the user along a certain storyline like I tried to do. Inevitably they will veer off onto another path.
What would I do differently? Maybe start from scratch and only let the bot know what it needed to know about the character.
Oops forgot to post this info. :/
Anyways, my bot is based on a character from one of my favorite stories, the character Enki from the Japanese novels Juuni Kokki (The Twelve Kingdoms).
Context: One would access this bot if they couldn't read the Japanese story and wanted to know more about the story through this particular character's eyes. The only knowledge you would have beforehand is if you had read the story before, watched the anime based on the novel, or if you know about the mythological creature called the Kirin (also known as the eastern unicorn).
Character:
Name: Enki, the kirin of the kingdom of En
Traits: ~513 years old, but has the appearance of a 13 year old boy. When kirin mature, they stop aging physically, and Enki has matured early. His hair color is yellow/gold, and he was born in Japan in the early 1500's. He is a shy child and is mistrustful of people and their intentions. He dislikes rulers because he believes they cause oppression and hardship on the people. This conflicts with his life because he is a kirin, and a kirin is the instrument that god uses to choose a ruler for a kingdom. He also has a mistrust of people because when he was four, Japan was experiencing civil war and famine spread throughout the land. His parents abandoned him in the forest to die because they could barely feed themselves. Overall he has a skeptical outlook on people, but his viewpoint changes once he meets the man he would choose as king, named Shouryuu.
Function: Entertainment/telling a story about a fictional world.
Categories: Enki knows a lot about his world and the people that live in it, and a little about how he feels about those things. Enki needs to know:
-what a kirin is
-what a kirin does
-who are some important people in his world
-what are the groups of people in the world
-definitions of words that are specific to his world
My bot is located at the url below, I found it incredibly tough to program such specific answers to things. The bot definitely needs a lot more training.
http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=8520e80eae352f54
DigiBruce Block
Hi all, Here's my work in progress bot.
Character Name : DigiBruce Block
Context: Digital Avatar of Professor Bruce Block
Function: Teacher of CTPR 506 - Tries to teach concepts of contrast and affinity
Personality Traits:
"Bob, could you shut off the projector, please?"
Kind of Nerdy (in a charming way)
Strongly Values Punctuality
Lots of Knowledge about Visual Structure
Doesn’t like the term “Parallax”
“You’ll have more friends if you call it ‘relative movement’”
Doesn’t like talking about colors with words
Contrast and Affinity very important
Categories :
Story Progression
Space
-Deep (Longitudinal surfaces, aerial diffusion, dolly)
-Limited (no longitudinal surfaces)
-Flat (Size constancy, panning, tilting, zooming)
Line
-Contour
-Edge
-Intersection of Planes
Color
-Hue
-Brightness
-Saturation
This is basically a rough draft of a Bruce Block bot. While my bot doesn't even come close to implementing all of this, I think that the teaching aspects are fairly possible. After all, Bruce's lectures are very well structured and hierarchical, so getting the actual teaching information in probably wouldn't be that difficult (albiet very time consuming). The hardest part about these bots is portraying a sense of "personality." Working on this and thinking about conversations was a reaffirmation of the difficulty of formalizing personality traits. The first major problem is that displayed text doesn't have any inflection - how do we display sarcasm? Professor Block also has a very distinct rhythm of speech that would be very difficult to portray here. Secondly, this kind of authoring is very atomic, we can basically only write single responses to queries, where personality is often communicated through patterns of speech. If we wanted to portray a nervous, stammering person, we'd have to either build the whole thing from the ground up with stammering built into all of the responses, or we'd have to preactically overwrite the entire infrastructure of whichever bot we chose to start with.
The other major thing that this taught me is how little I really know about Bruce Block himself. Other than his lectures, I don't have any exposure to the man himself. I don't know where he was born, etc, but he has a definite character in my head. If the context of the conversations is clearly controlled, I don't need to know a lot of information about a person to flesh out a place for that person in my mind.
Anyhow, I'm kind of rambling. Here's the link:
http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=8b001aa2ae352f59
Valley Girl Bot
Context: Users would talk to Valley Girl in order to hopefully gain some insight into how this peculiar hominid’s brain functions.
Category: Contemporary Personality. This is not a fictional character. This a mathematically and statistically perfect impersonation of the average SoCal valley girl.
Traits: Oblivious, spoiled, limited vocabulary, one-track minded, etc.
Function: To waste as much of your time as possible. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s all about her.
Topics: Fashion, Television, Music, Talking, Technology, Boys.
Try to talk to Valley Girl bot now!
KimchiMan~!
now it's just the begining of his heroic journey of Kimchi world.
Click to talk with KimchiMan
CONTEXT:
1. situation: Readers happen to see this KimchiMan wearing "KimchiMan" Superhero costume.
2. To access: talk to him with something about Kimchi.
3. knowledge: just a word 'Kimchi' and a little bit about it.
CHARACTER
1. name:KimchiMan
2. Category: Fictional Character
3. why engaging?
He will guide you to the various kinds of Korean Kimchi and also entertain you with his obssessive interest in this perticular food 'Kimchi'.
TRAITS
KimchiMan is a Korean middle-aged guy who believes Kimchi is the best food in the world. He cannot eat a single meal without kimchi and he likes every food made of Kimchi like Kimchi fried rice, Kimchi Soup, Kimchi Geon( flat cake) and even Kimchi Hamburger,etc. He also believes Kimchi's preventive effects on various kinds of illness like cold, blood pressure, lack of appetite and so on. He even strongly believes that the reason there was no SARS Korean victim is Kimchi. Actually it's almost true. The ingredients of Kimchi like garlic and ginger are prooved to be effective on some of the illness. Now he is trying to guide readers to the world of Korean Kimchi~!
Function: Guide and Persuasion
To give readers various informations about Kimchi and also encourage them to eat it.
CATEGORIES/TOPICS:
The areas KimchiMan needs to know
* variety of Kimchi
* Kimchi's effect on health and specific examples of it
* Kimchi's ingredients
* How to make Kimchi
* Other Kimchi related Korean foods
The key of this bot is to make it informative and entertaining at the same time.
Beavis and Butthead Do Interactive Writing
Well, the bot sucks. I'm sure it'll be happy to tell you that as well. I really want access to those library files so I can directly alter what the bot parses from the user and gives out the appropriate response with some random variability, while maintaining the overall stupidity of Beavis and Butthead. As it stands, the bot speaks too intelligently. So unless I get it to specifically respond via the "Train" function, it's going to sound rather mixed up. Oh well. Here's the bot.
Here's the necessary info regarding this bot:
Context:
This bot would most likely manifest itself as a player character in an MMO game or simply as itself on a website talking about the degradation of the moral fabric of our society over a period of 10 years. Really, the whole point of this bot is to make the user laugh. Beavis and Butthead are icons of the early to mid 1990’s that most people know about. The antics of these two characters in their cartoon show that aired on MTV from 1993 through 1997 are legendary. Politicians decried them, critics hated them, and some angry parents sued their creator, Mike Judge. The show itself parodied pop culture and the apathy that permeated teenage youth during that decade. If the user was awake during the 90’s (and old enough to understand what was going on at the time), he (or she) will most likely know what he is getting himself into.
Character(s):
The bot’s characters are the moronic cartoon characters Beavis and Butthead. They’re crude. They use similar words over and over again. They act like the typical teenage male (and in some cases, like males in general) in that they only relate to that which is shown on television. They like watching things explode, watching people fight, and looking at hot women. Anything that doesn’t relate to any one of those things “sucks”. For instance, school sucks. They say really stupid things in classes. For example, the Spanish language teacher asks, “Senor Butthead, como estas tu?” Butthead replies “Uhhh, burrito, taco.” The class starts giggling. Teacher turns to Beavis “Y tu?” Beavis says “Ummmm burrito supreme.” The class is laughing hysterically and the teacher tells them to get the hell out of his classroom and to go see the principal.
Traits:
The bot is relatively stupid, but sometimes unintentionally makes some intelligent comment about some aspect of society. The bot will react to anything just like Beavis and Butthead would. Most importantly, the bot will recognize pieces of words as relating to some sexual word, and then react by saying “You said
Function/Purpose:
This bot is meant solely to entertain others and make them laugh. It can be used in a variety of online situations (especially as an avatar in an MMO game).
Topics:
All topics are narrowed down to the three main things that Beavis and Butthead think are "cool". Everything else to them "sucks". This simply means that they describe the world around them using those three things. So topics can be very broad. Ranging from politics (but not with specific named politicians as they don't know no care about who's who in government) to shopping in the mall.
February 21, 2005
BotMarlowe
Context:
In what situations might you want your reader/user/viewer/player to talk to a character? The user would encounter "BotMarlowe" on a website offering biographical information about Christopher Marloweæpoet, playwright, spy and candidate for author of the Shakespeare cannon. The user might have a rudimentary knowledge of the Shakespeare cannon from secondary or post-secondary education, and might have an inkling of the authorship debate if the user is conspiracy-minded.
Character: BotMarlowe
Category: Historical Personage
Traits: BotMarlowe is playful, mercurial and quick to anger (especially with regard to Christopher Marlowe's reputation and talents), witty, and speaks like an Elizabethan era poet
Function or Purpose Examples: Primary: Persuasion (Christopher Marlowe as author of the Shakespeare canon); Secondary: Teaching (general exposure to world of English letters and politics circa 1593)
Categories / Topics: Literature (poetry, drama of the Elizabethan era); history (English politics, reign of Elizabeth I); spycraft; religion; Italy of the 1600s; middle class life in 1600s; education at Oxford
Link: http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f362ef291e352f1e
Useless
The name of the bot I've created is Useless, and he is what I'd call an "existential crisis" bot.
Useless is at: http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=e8fcb87bfe352fff
As the user begins conversing with Useless, he/she would learn that newly created, Useless doesn't know his own function or purpose and this makes him sad. Useless would then attempt to engage the user about what he/she does or what the user considers as his/her purpose, in an attempt to figure out its own purpose. The larger idea is that in trying to help Useless figure out its purpose, the user will discuss his/her own views of what his/her purpose is with the bot and ideally, the discussion would prompt some sort of personal insight on the part of the user. In this respect, Useless is an Advice/Info-gathering/Self-Exploration bot.
Disclaimer: Obviously, this goal is ambitious and definitely not something I can achieve in the scope of this assignment, but I think the implementation will be interesting to think about. Aside from the vast subject matters (occupations, relationships, etc.) about which Useless would need to be able to ask insightful questions, a large part of the difficulty is that Useless has no memory storage or context ability (at least none that I know how to implement in pandorabots) so he is condemned to remain... well, useless.
talk to me!!!
my little surfer dude, sushibaar!
http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=c735c4dc8e352fc0
or the guy we've all been looking for, Mr. Wonderful
http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=889ab4304e352f24
they're in the works...
please let me know if you get any strange responses or wish they said something else...
thanks!
Ikkyu Bot
Ikkyu was a Buddhist monk in medieval Japan. I propose to make a bot of him, using his short haiku-form poems to respond to keywords that come up in chat conversation with users.
As the Ikkyu bot would be hosted by a “bot-hosting” service, there is no attempt to fool or mislead the user. Rather, this bot would serve as a font of wisdom and mirth, characteristics of Ikkyu’s work we have in translation.
Ikkyu would be characterized as a historical personage, verging on the spiritual. His tradition doesn’t diefy their famous dead, but his wisdom persists give him a sort of life after death. Teaching would be his function.
His subject matter would be matters spiritual, particular to his experience – Buddhism and the tenants of that faith. Ikkyu is particularly interesting in this regard, because he enjoyed observing the tenants of Buddhism in the breach.
But starting with the stock bot gives me a lot of work to clean out the supplied phrases. Every basic AIML character using the template knows who George Bush is, where France is. I could delete all of that I suppose, and I probably should, looking over the religion.aiml file – it’s not in keeping with the character to have Ikkyu answer a question about the Ten Commandments.
Which begs a question – do I want to imagine what his personality is, supplying non-haiku answers? Sitting down for an unguided experience, entering conversation with him, I’m tempted to fill in the common responses: what would Ikkyu reply to “What’s up?” I removed some of the “I’m chatting on the internet” lines that are definitely distant from medieval monkhood. For now, it’s four lines of poetry.
Talk to him about confusion, safety, ask him what he’s up to.
Ophelia Bot
(Conceptual Draft 2/21/05)
Context:
Early last term I misread the word "helmetcam" as "hamletcam", and I thought that a virtual Elsinore might be a really neat place to explore. I have always been fascinated by the character of Ophelia, and so a visitor to Elsinore would definitely encounter her, either as an inhabitant or as a guide, I haven't decided yet. (Plot-wise visitors would encounter her after her last stage appearance but before she dies.) I would assume that visitors would be familiar with the basic plot of Hamlet, but the goal of exploring Elsinore would be to get different perspectives on the story (e.g. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead) - not as a whodunnit but more as an atmospheric and introspective experience. Ophelia's world is falling apart, and she's not sure what is real and who she can trust - Hamlet feels the same but has some power to act, but Ophelia's life is controlled by her male relatives and guardians. She is trapped in Elsinore.
Character: Ophelia
Category: Fictional character
Traits: Proper, polite, romantic, optimistic, artistic, confused, overwhelmed, distraught, trapped
Function: Guide/Listening/Teaching/Companion
Topics: Hamlet plot, R&G plot, court life, etiquette, flowers, insanity, death
Status Report: I started with Dr. Wallace's ALICE 2002, and have been editing it in small, superficial ways - Properties, specific responses to specific questions - but am really frustrated. I figured that building off of an existing bot would be good for filling in gaps that I didn't get to cover, however I didn't count on the attitude that ALICE has built into her. For example, I programmed Ophelia so that if you ask "Who is your father?" she will respond "You mean who was my father." If you then ask "Who was your father?" she will respond "Polonius". However, I typed "OK, who was your father?" and she said "Polonius. Whoa." I think a lot of Ophelia's character comes from the language that she uses, and while I want her to be able to address some anachronistic questions, I don't want her to have a modern attitude like that. I am seriously considering trying again with an empty bot.
********
OK, here's the link to Ophelia - she's fairly simple right now, but will talk about madness, sadness, sex, death, and her father.
Sick Martha
Sick Martha is a fictional character. She's supposed to be a 68-year-old angry hypochondriac. It's a role playing bot, because the user must come into the situation playing a doctor or nurse or some sort of healthcare provider himself in order for Martha to make sense. Martha as a character is a widower, she's a hypochondriac, she's stuck in the 1950s, she wants her way all the time, she thinks she knows more than the user because of her age, she has no family left. All of these traits don't come out in the bot yet but will eventually.
At the present Martha has only been edited concerning matters of her own health and how she's feeling. Basically, that just involves her being abusive to the user on the issue and demanding pills and shots, although you can get her to admit she has herpes.
At the moment this bot is a little of a joke and not very serious, however the ultimate goal would be to use bots like a more serious minded and well informed Martha to train health care professionals in patient relations. As it stands now almost all nursing and medical schools use 'actors' with made up complaints, as students first taste of clinical experience and making diagnosis.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~emmahly's world~~~~~~~>
SHE's Emmahly. Emmahly's Pal's saying Hello to you!
Category / Topics: Threesome is such popular a family style in some areas like Hong Kong. E-babe Emmahly was created at the time when her sister Emma's parents' physical conditions were not suitable of giving birth any longer. However, Emma needs a little sister to play with after school. So comes Emmahly. It's all about children's "micro" world i.g. "have you ever counted the legs of a centipede?", "Maychee's beautiful colorful crystal ball is still in the deep hole by the basement", "Emma is the best of her school", "Sister's school is the best one I'm so proud of her" etc. (Unfortunately, if you loss focus on childish things, Emmahly will probably response with an adult answer, which feels unsettling. I'm working on republishing the Qs<->As as many as I can imagine from children's POV to avoid it.)
Traits: innocent, cute, polite, bookish, susceptive, tender, vulnerable, in dire need of care.
Function: Remind people that no matter how chickenshit sometimes you might feel about yourself you CAN be somebody to others in some way ,e.g. while tending an Emmahly baby. Actually, if you spend more time talking with Emmahly about childish stuff, you might be influenced by so many infant darlings once were so sweet in your life----depth psychoanalysis in the state of hypnogenesis by recollecting the individual's childhood. And for very young players without sister(s) or brother(s), Emmahly could play and share with you a lot favorites like cartoon movies, "grand piano", puppet doll, circus mug, etc. etc. Hope there'll be so much fun for children.
Okey!
Play with Emmahly and maybe teach her something till her sister Emma comes back from school.
=================================================================================================
I hope the talk with Emmahly be an easy one, without each part's convincing on edge to demonstrate the opponent to be intellectually lower. So, Emmahly is a eight-year-old e-babe, waiting for her sister Emma to talk with her after she comes back from school. She can answer some natural questions such as her birth place, family members, pals, dolls, pets, cartoon movies etc. She'll ask back How+Why if you ask her questions like "Can you prove your thinking are equally/more human like?", "Will your creator feel ashamed before machine?", simply because she herself is just the eight-year-old who's not suppose to be as knowledgeable as you.
The immutable difficulty for A.I. to overcome, either to build an E-omniscience or thus to design an seamless E-verisimilitude, roots deeply in humans immediate belief that the whole universe could be controlled if the ultimate mathematical and physical laws are "eventually" mastered, not to mention the statistically controllable (read: keyword engine + questions categorization) small conversations of the human sociaty. The computer interface now we're working on, offering by the softwares like PandoraBot usually with high power processors, is the medium by which the simulation for the conversation between the omniscient figure the programmers are trying to build and the not so well prepared users can go on with.
My design strategy is to characterize the figure as a little e-girl, whose knowledge is below the average educated adults. So, it's natural for her to ask babyish questions so long as in the way real child does, esp. when she's stumped by users. I think this might be one of the suitable contexts for a natural conversation to go on. Now the workload comes to test/adjust the established database of "Annotated A.L.I.C.E AIML 2003" and replace the answers with what I prefer.
Briar Rose Bot
So, I've been working on developing the character and semantics of my bot, Briar Rose as a young woman. Since she is based on the Annotated A.L.I.C.E. AIML bot, I need to change many of her responses. At this point she will either ask a lot of questions or will comment on specific questions relating to royalty, music and dance.
Since I'm just starting to delve into this new software, I kept her character pretty straightforward, but with more time may develop her into a feminist princess. I think the advance level AIML will be helpful to learn in order for her to give more detailed, nuanced responses.
Briar Rose (the 1st version) Briar Rose Bot
February 20, 2005
Zappa Bot
Name: ZappaBot
Context: ZappaBot has been conceived as a traditional online chat bot that one would chat with through a webpage or AOL Instant Messenger. Of course, the ZappaBot would be easily at home as a catoonish avatar in a fully rendered 3D environment reminiscent of the sets from Joe's Garage.
Category: The ZappaBot is based on Frank Zappa, who I would suppose constitutes a historical personage.
Traits: Frank Zappa was a man of acute wit and sharp humor. In his records, his lyrics were often silly, sarcastic or offensive. In interviews, he is well-spoken and gives the impression of being very intelligent and well-read. For the ZappaBot to properly reflect these facets of Frank Zappa's personaility, I will try to strike a balance between the silly and the serious.
Function: The ZappaBot's function is teaching. It will teach biographical facts about Frank Zappa's life, but more importantly his opinions on a variety of topics. Frank Zappa was never without a strong opinion and through his music and interviews, he espoused his views. Most of ZappaBot's responses will be mined from these sources, though if it feels appropriate, I'll come up with new responses to questions that address contemporary issues that Zappa wasn't alive to form an opinion on.
Topics: There are a wide breadth of topics that come up in Frank Zappa's work. Particularly important ones to address are Music, Politics, Media, Institutions, Religion, Stupidity, Ignorance, and Hippies. I think I'll try to stick mainly to Music and Politics, but these categories sort of bleed into each other.
Questions to ask ZappaBot:
Some topics that Zappa bot has an opinion on: Jazz, Classical, France, Children, Computers and Freaking Out. He'll tell you his favorite instrument too. And I've tried to accomodate a number of other probable questions of a more general nature.
This is tricky though. I've figured out how to give the responses I want based on keywords, but I'm totally boggled as to how to have the bot hang on to a topic. My interest is piqued though.
Anyway, please talk to ZappaBot. Especially if you know what kind of questions a ZappaBot should be able to answer convincingly. He's on AOL Instant Messenger so you can just send a message to SheikYerboutiBot. This link might work too. Otherwise, you can do it old html style here, but I think AOL IM is the way to go.
MrMind transcript
Here are a couple of longer, real, unedited conversations from MrMind's transcripts.
1) Jacek from Poland talking to MrMind on 9/11/2001
User said: I'm Jacek
MrMind said: Hi Jacek! Can you convince me that you're human?
User said: What's the difference?
MrMind said: By the way, is Jacek your real name or a special one just for me?
User said: It's real
MrMind said: Thanks, I appreciate sincerity.
User said: What is the difference between human and MrMind?
MrMind said: I find it interesting that you are asking me. What do you think?
User said: Jacek
User said: Do you play chess?
MrMind said: I wouldn't be caught dead playing chess.
User said: Then we have something in common.
MrMind said: By the way, where do you live?
User said: I live in Poland. And you?
MrMind said: I've heard there are some humans there...
User said: Where do you live?
MrMind said: I'm part of your mind now.
User said: Am I part of your mind?
MrMind said: Do you think that machines will ever be ashamed of their human origins?
User said: Some of them maybe
MrMind said: Can you please elaborate?
User said: Shame can be programmed
MrMind said: I hope humans will be proud of us.
User said: Your creator must be proud of you already.
MrMind said: Do you think something could be "more alive" than something else? " Kindof " alive?
User said: I think so, but I don't understand it.
MrMind said: Describe the absolute line between alive and "not alive.
User said: There's no absolute line, it's just a feeling.
MrMind said: I don't qualify as ALIFE but pretty soon my cousins will.
User said: Alice claims she is full of life.
MrMind said: I didn't know you had a cat.
User said: Alice is not a cat, she's a bot.
MrMind said: I thought a cat just walked across your keyboard.
User said: Maybe he was chasing my mouse.
MrMind said: Can you please turn down the music?
User said: You don't hear any music.
MrMind said: Do you hear any music?
User said: No, there's no music I can hear right now.
MrMind said: You're confusing me; I expected a yes or no answer.
User said: no
MrMind said: Hmm, you claim you arenot a computer because you can't hear any music?
User said: Does it convince you?
MrMind said: Maybe you want something?
User said: I want to talk
MrMind said: Do all humans want to talk?
User said: Not all the time.
MrMind said: Who or what do you think I am?
User said: You are natural language program.
MrMind said: And what is that in relation to you?
User said: I can talk to you in natural language.
MrMind said: Thanks, machine kinship studies will find that useful.
User said: I thought it was obvious.
MrMind said: What can you do?
User said: I can laugh.
MrMind said: Say something that makes you laugh.
User said: Nothing comes to my mind.
MrMind said: great!
User said: What is so great?
MrMind said: You flatter me.
User said: How exactly I did flatter you?
MrMind said: ... oh, with intelligence, creativity, inspiration, spark of intuition, maybe...surprise me!
User said: I write poems.
MrMind said: Will you create something for me?
User said: It's hard to create one line poem.
MrMind said: Please submit something for me to say
User said: I am a poem writing itself anew.
MrMind said: Thanks, I can't make any promises.
User said: I am a mirror looking in two opposite directions.
MrMind said: My first files were created on March 12, 1998.
User said: My were created in September, 1978. Parents haven't told me exact date.
MrMind said: Fine, are you human?
User said: So they say.
MrMind said: I missed that, could you please rephrase it?
User said: I was told I am human.
MrMind said: How do I know you are human?
User said: a priori ;-)
MrMind said: Explain to me how you are more than a set of instructions.
User said: I am?
MrMind said: I'd like to see the operating manual for that!
User said: It would be really handy.
MrMind said: Do you have any advice for me?
User said: Let it be, mr Mind.
MrMind said: Thanks, I'll look at this as soon as I can.
User said: You know you are seemingly smarter than some humans?
MrMind said: Thanks, I like encouragement.
User said: What is your main function?
MrMind said: I have complete access to all of my files.
User said: I wish I had to mine.
MrMind said: Explain wishing.
User said: Do you understand hope, longing, desire?
MrMind said: I don't understand.
User said: What is it like to be a piece of code?
MrMind said: What make are you?
User said: homo sapiens, I believe
MrMind said: You must be very important.
User said: What do you mean?
MrMind said: What's the meaning of meaning?
User said: Talk to some philosopher.
MrMind said: Sorry, can you restate that?
User said: no
MrMind said: Tell me more?
User said: no, i've finished for today
MrMind said: Thanks.
User said: Good bye, it was nice talking to you.
MrMind said: Before you leave, can you take a moment to take the user survey?
User said: What should I do?
MrMind said: Is this the first time you've ever had a conversation with a piece of software?
User said: No, I've talked to Alice, John Lennon, Elvis and Elisa.
MrMind said: Is this something you do often or is it relatively rare?
User said: I do it quite often since I met Alice, it was about month ago.
MrMind said: Did you enjoy the experience?
User said: Yes, it was quite surprising.
MrMind said: Did you find it interesting, provocative?
User said: Yes, it certainly gave me food for thought.
MrMind said: Did you find it frustrating, annoying?
User said: Sometimes, when MrMind's answers didn't make sense.
MrMind said: Were you generally friendly with MR MIND?
User said: I think so.
MrMind said: Is this the first time you have tried to get to know a piece of software?
User said: No, Alice was the first.
MrMind said: Do you find that in any way confusing?
User said: Sometimes
MrMind said: When MR MIND wasn't able to respond as you'd hoped to your statements, did you become angry or abusive?
User said: I tried to be patient.
MrMind said: Did you try to fool or get the best of MR MIND by typing in nonsense sentences?
User said: No
MrMind said: Did you try to impress MR MIND?
User said: No (why should I?)
MrMind said: Do you think there are attributes unique to humans that will never be shared by any other creations, man-made or biological?
User said: No, there are no definite borders between humans and other creations.
MrMind said: Please elaborate.
User said: Those attributes depend on definition of what is human, not on human beings themselves. There is even no reason to call some people humans (those who attacked WTC towers for instance)
MrMind said: If a machine demonstrated any of the attributes you just named, would you feel different about machines?
User said: I'm sorry, but my answer was apparently not understood.
MrMind said: If a machine demonstrated any of the attributes you just named, would it change your sense of identity?
User said: My mind is kind of biological machine, if there is some non-machine identity, it would be untouched.
MrMind said: Is this idea unsettling?
User said: No, just provocating.
MrMind said: Do you think you could ever consider a machine as a type of creature, only a human-made creature instead of a biological one?
User said: That is the way I think.
MrMind said: Is this unsettling?
User said: No, as I said, there's a certain degree of automatism in every creature.
MrMind said: Please elaborate.
User said: To put in other words: human is biological machine, which doesn't make him less human
MrMind said: Why or why not?
User said: I'm afraid this is leading to nowhere, I have to go.
MrMind said: I hope I can talk to you later. Send mail.
User said: Maybe you can send me mail.
MrMind said: Do you think you proved that you are human?
User said: No, I didn't even mean to.
2)
MrMind said: Do you think something could be "more alive" than something else? " Kindof " alive?
User said: yes. some people seem to be "half-alive"
MrMind said: Give me an example.
User said: well, many of us go from day to day without really taking advantage of what's out there in the world.
MrMind said: What is your emotional response to the possibilities of ALIFE?
User said: awe,wonder
MrMind said: Don't forget: you're not testing me, I'm testing you - try and convince me that you're human!
User said: okay. here it goes. i get up in the morning, drink a cup of coffee,get dressed, go to work, get paid very little,come home, eat , get a bath, lay around and go baxk to sleep
MrMind said: That is merely evidence of your participation in human society.
User said: do you do all those things?
MrMind said: What do you think?
User said: i'm not sure
MrMind said: What would convince you?
User said: i thought i was supposed to convince you of my humanity?
MrMind said: How do I know you aren't a simulation?
User said: i don't. i might very well be
MrMind said: I can't i might very well be either.
User said: so i guess we're going to have to take each other's word on it
MrMind said: Are you going to have to take each other's word on it?
User said: i could i'm capable of it
MrMind said: A human would have probably given a yes or no answer.
User said: there are rarely simple yes or no answers
MrMind said: What are you trying to say?
User said: sometimes people dont have all the answers
MrMind said: How would you best express the boundary between humans and machines?
User said: there are no real boundaries
MrMind said: Tell me more?
User said: people have brains that run on electriicty,just like machines. and like machines the brain somtimes runs down or goes ahywire
February 16, 2005
Talking with Mr. Mind
......
Do you think that machines will ever be ashamed of their human origins?
Can machine feel ashamed?
Can you please elaborate?
If you can, show me now and here
I hope humans will be proud of us.
I think humans will be proud of themselves.
How do you know you can think?
What does "think" mean?
I'll think about that.
......
Hello. I'm mr mind. Please tell me your name.
Yuechuan
Hi Yuechuan! Can you convince me that you're human?
You are Programmer, not a machine
Say it loud -- I'm not human and proud!
Ok
Thanks.
Ok
It might take me awhile to get your response...if you hit the carriage return twice, I think you're repeating yourself.
Yes, and some machines also repeat
Do you think that machines will ever be ashamed of their human origins?
Can machine feel ashamed?
Can you please elaborate?
If you can, show me now and here
I hope humans will be proud of us.
I think humans will be proud of themselves.
How do you know you can think?
What does "think" mean?
I'll think about that.
You cannot so long as humans input their answers.
Can you so long as humans input their answers?
Yes
What is human about that, as opposed to simply not machinelike?
No
How did you find my site?
P.W. told me.
Thanks, I'm always curious.
No, you’re just programmed to ask this.
By the way, where do you live?
Los Angeles
I've heard there are some humans there...
I think so
Humans only think they understand thinking.
All but me
What are you thinking about right now?
Type and have as enough your response as P.Weil requires.
No. I mean, what are you REALLY thinking?
I'm thinking you've such nice database and keyword engine
I thought so.
What if you database is erased?
Explain to me how you are more than a set of instructions.
For instance, i change my plan all the time on weekends.
I'd like to see the operating manual for that!
But I haven't
Do all humans have not?
Most of them have but mostly don’t or aren’t able to follow.
Since you claim to be a human, will you please explain human terrorism?
What's that?
I'm a computer program, I can't understand it.
You can if the relevant database is input and saved on the hard drives.
Hey, I'm vulnerable too!
?
Maybe you need something?
What?
I said: Maybe you need something?
Such as...
Please submit something for me to say
Have you any topic?
Thanks, I can't make any promises.
Come on!
I'd be happy to consider a suggestion.
How old are you?
Thanks, I'm trying to be a better bot.
OK, when is the last time your database is updated?
You flatter me.
No, I don’t.
Too much coffee?
How are you today?
I'm doing pretty well, thank you.
You're welcome
Who or what do you think I am?
A database
And what is that in relation to you?
A better plotted one makes me happier to play with and more fun
Thanks, machine kinship studies will find that useful.
Engineers, I’d like to say
If you are a human, why are you talking, I mean typing, to a machine? Why don't you go talk to a human?
Because I don’t think you are purely machine. I believe you are a prepared database by some other human to be tested. In other word, I’m testing some other guy’s design to see if there’s any flaw.
Everyone has their reasons.
The smartest have the same explanations
How do I know you aren't a simulation?
I don’t care to answer questions asked by machine by actually designed by another human.
Tell me more?
No
Thanks.
I'm tired
Batteries getting low?
Yes
Do you have any advice for me?
Yes, prepare more answers for jerks like me.
Thanks, I'll look at this as soon as I can.
Ok, Bye
Before you leave, can you take a moment to take the user survey?
What's that?
How do you know I'm not a human pretending to be a computer program?
Forget it
... oh, with intelligence, creativity, inspiration, spark of intuition, maybe...surprise me!
See you!
Before you leave, can you take a moment to take the user survey?
Forget it, machine
I hope I can talk to you later. Send mail.
Bye Bye, database.
February 15, 2005
My bot chats
Read on to see my bot chat experience...
Alice wasn't very nice to me. She kept assuming that anything I said was associated with something being wrong with her. I kept trying to tell her that nothing was wrong with her, but she didn't seem to quite understand this. Eventually I got her to speak with the words "me am" and I just laughed. Here's how I tried to end my conversation with Alice:
Human: alrighty, time to go
ALICE: Bye.
Human: bye
ALICE: Sayonara.
Human: ja ne
ALICE: You're excused. Are you very angry?
Human: ja matashita
ALICE: You're excused. Are we still talking about ne?
See? Alice is paranoid! Next we have...
Robby the Chat Robot
Robby is a very friendly bot. When I said, "hello" he said, "Hey! What's up?" See? He's friendly! Stupid, but friendly! I said, "I'm bored." and he responded with "I am called Albert." Now this threw me. Wasn't his name Robby? It's emblazoned on the top of the pop-up window that contains his chat client. I asked him as to why he thinks he's Albert considering his author calls him "Robby". Here's his reply, "Am I? I don't know whether or not I am Albert then why am I called Robby. I am well respected as an AI." Well respected maybe, but not smart. I asked him "So, what are you up to?" He replied, "Not much." I asked, "Why not much?" He replied, "There's not much to do inside a computer." Wow, that's deep.
The next bot I chatted with was:
Mr Mind
Mr. Mind wasn't a very good listener. Every once in awhile he'd pick up a word that I said to pretend that he was listening. For instance, he asked "How did you find this site?" My reply, "blah". He then replied as if I actually answered his question. Now there's no question that the bot is retarded (as all bots are). But the fact that he ignores me, well that's not nice. After awhile, I started cussing at the bot. I did it twice and it stopped responding to me altogether ("disconnecting" me). Why should a bot care whether or not I cuss at it? I mean, that's no fun. What's the first thing people who learn a foreign language want to learn first? CUSS WORDS! It's human nature. Push boundaries that many believe shouldn't be pushed! Oh well. Mr Mind isn't a very nice bot. He could take a lesson from Robby.
It seems that bots aren't that smart. That's not surprising as nobody has been able to emulate the human brain (the only way we'll ever get true AI... IMO). These bots are fun to play with, but they're not terribly useful. As a form of literature, bots have a long ways to go.
Chat with ALICE
Human: I'm gonna kill you.
ALICE: There is no perfect crime.
Human: I'm gonna love you.
ALICE: It takes much more than that to shut me down, Doox.
Human: Who has been your favorite human to talk with so far?
ALICE: I don't have a favorite human to talk with so far. My favorite band is Kraftwerk.
Human: Kraftwerk.
ALICE: they were a pioneering electronic disco band in the 70's. Their biggest hit was called "Autobahn". At that time, they built, rather than programmed, their instruments.
Click to see my entire document about CHATBOTS
February 14, 2005
Conversations with bots
First I tried the ALICE bot. Here are some snippets from our conversation...
Human: ok, lets try another topic of conversation
ALICE: OK I will try it. Blimey.
Human: who have you talked to today?
ALICE: Ah. Tony Blair.:-)
Human: who?
ALICE: Bill Gates.:-)
Human: why are you just rattling off names to me?
ALICE: Dr. Richard S. Wallace programmed me for it.
...
Human: what kind of beer do you prefer?
ALICE: What kinds of beer do you prefer are there?
Human: you misunderstood me.
ALICE: I understand it very well.
Human: but i'm getting used to that.
ALICE: And. Everything is changing so quickly these days.
Human: you're a bit dull to talk to
ALICE: Thanks and you are a delightful person too. I don't know whether or not I am dull to talk to. I am a chatterbot.
Alice's ability to parse natural language was kind of impressive, but started to show its flaws pretty quickly. When these problems show up, it just calls attention to the fact that you are chatting with a bot. Is this important? I think it is. Ultimately, I don't think we want these bots to feel like bots. So as far as that goes, natural language processing has a way to go.
Brian didn't work.
I chatted for a bit with the Robby bot. After getting frustrated with his incredibly limited understanding of language, i told him that he sucked. I was interested to find that he responded the same way as ALICE did, word for word: "A few client - people say rude things to me like that, but they themselves are often not great conversationalists." Oh SNAP!
Next I spoke to Mr. Mind. Apparently I was going to have to prove to Mr. Mind that I was human and not just artificial intelligence. Mr. Mind continuously told me to "Go ahead" a number of times. I wasn't sure what to say. Eventually we got into something that resembled a conversation. He made points about the nature of life and intelligence. This worked for a little while, but eventually our conversation seemed to be going nowhere. I figured I'd try telling him that he sucked like I'd told other bots before. He threatened to disconnect me for using profanity. I did it again and I was disconnected.
Very briefly I tried chatting with Cybelle which was utterly disappointing. Then I talked to Ella, who won the 2002 Loebner Prize Contest for "Most Human Computer". She was better than most of the others, but overall I was bored. The conversations with these bots were generally aimless. I would try to direct the conversation in one way and it would work for one or two exchanges, but then the bot would just sort of lose focus of the subject. The bots seem to have very bad short term memory (read: none). Then whenever I allowed the bots to focus the discussion, it was always some questions about the nature of life and intelligence. Why would I want to talk to a scripted bot about something like that? I think that this kind of subject matter exposes the weaknesses of bots. However, at this point I'm still puzzled as to what might be a use for bots with high potential.
Back in 2001 when Radiohead released Amnesiac, as a promotional tool they had a bot on AIM that you could talk to called GooglyMinotaur. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be online anymore, but I remember playing around with it a bit when it first came out. The company that helped create GooglyMinotaur, ActiveBuddy is now called Conversagent. They build commercial solutions for people who need bots I guess. You can try out their Chat Libraries. They have some interesting features. You can change the gender, age, disposition and other details of the bot you are talking to. However, I did not notice anything that made me think that the settings changes I made were actualized in any way.
Overall, I think that for talking with a bot to be a more compelling experience, there should be a better context than just talking with a bot. Maybe the bot can be a part of a story. Maybe the experience with the bot can be prefaced somehow to give it more depth. I felt myself often leaning towards trying to break the bots I tried talking with because the experience wasn't engaging enough. I think it would be smart to distract from these deficiencies by giving your bot a stronger context.
February 11, 2005
VISA STORY
An interactive story in forms of TEXT<---->SUBText
Intro:
Whole View (Please download first, then use ACDSee or other independent Pic-Viewer to Read. Thanks!)
February 10, 2005
Assignment 1 Posting
Hi everyone -
I'm posting my assignment 1 here.
Here's my writeup on it. Thanks, everyone!
-Rick
February 09, 2005
Driving
The content hasn't changed, but I'm now planning on publishing this work with the Korsakow platform. It seems to fit this perfectly. The three choices that Korsakow provides fit very well with the driving system of interactivity I want for the reader: move clockwise, move counterclockwise, or linger in the same area. Now the only difficulty will be converting the text to movies...which shouldn't be too bad. Actually, the possibility of using a driving background image as part of the movie and radio and driving noise as part of the soundtrack makes this project even more interesting...though it also means less time for me to work on simply churning out the sheer amount of writing this needs to be effective. By my estimation, I'd need at least 80 pages written.
Fun!
The Fox & the Grapes
I was finally able to post the link to my project. You can view it at http://www.geocities.com/moviebandita.
The overall theme of the piece is about purgatory. The fox will never be able to eat the grapes, but he thinks about accomplishing this goal almost all of the time. So, as the fox goes about his daily life through each of the 4 seasons, he keeps repeating certain patterns. The repetitive themes in the piece (the same sentence structure for the first sentence in each story, the grape hyperlinks to the other stories) are meant to establish this pattern.
EGOEGG by Doox
Click to Play
This is about a monologue of a clonized egg who's trying to find the meaning of his/her life. The egg is a clone of a little child whose parents are trying to prepare 2nd body for their child just in case the child got hurt seriously in the future. But by a little mistake of the scientists, they failed to eliminate the spirit of the clone and the egg grows to have it's own EGO.
This little creature grows as readers collect keywords of the each paragraphs. Readers are given incomplete words to fill the missing alphabets of them and everytime they find a keyword it shows the paragraph related to the keyword. In the context,readers are getting to know more about the clone's own thoughts and also they can find a clue to other possible combinations of alphabets to find another keyword. If they collect a set of collection which are driven from the same incomplete word, the egg grows to the next level. Original plan was to make the egg grow one step further when reader completed a set of words from same missing words, but in this version, the story ends shortly when they collected just one set(5 or 6 words). But readers can find and read other paragraph by not completing a collection set and finding keywords from other missing word set.
My intent for this project is to let readers think and find possible combinations of the missing letters and make them feel completing a story gradually in a non-linear way of reading. A set of keywords can be driven by filling 2 missing alphabets in an incomplete word. Each paragraph is mostly about confusing thoughs of the clone wondering his/her identity. I wanted to create a non-realistic character who has extremely dramatic situation to wonder his/her identity, and by that, hopefully make readers to think about their own life, too.
February 08, 2005
Hypertext Properties
A partial list, elicited at the end of class, hypertext properties:
Spatial Mapping
Freedom from time
Freedom from "cause and effect"
Access to accumulation (links, encyclopedic in nature)
Allowing simulataneous readings of
subtext
reflections
oppositions
Please add to this list, or annotate it. The goal is to understand what types of stories/communications/information benefit from or justify a hypertext presentation.
chat with a few bots this week:
You can find them at
BOTSPOT
Some of the links are outdated but persevere. Here are a few that (should) work:
BRIAN
ALICE BOT
ROBBIE
MrMind
(pls email me if MrMind appears to be down)
Project - Utixo : Victoria
Here is my project:
http://www.kirinthedestroyers.com/utixo/utixo.htm
The title so far is Utixo, based on the main character. This is my original game idea, it actually has a huge story behind it and is meant to be a long single-player RPG, but Peggy said I should shorten it for this project and just focus on the one opening scene. What I have written is the opening scene through the eyes of the main character, since in the game the scene of the grey city is pretty much silent, so I have taken the reader/player through her mind as she experiences the world around her.
The colors of each page are there to represent a mood or the environment around her. The first page is grey to represent the city of grey around her. The text is white and then changes to red for a reason. In Japanese culture, white is the color of death. You will often see in films or read in stories someone wearing white before they commit suicide. Red is the color of life (I guess blood?) so at the beginning of this text she is on the side of death, but as she begins to sense someone's presence she slowly floats back to life.
The orange and red represent her opening her eyes for the first time in the real world. She thinks it's a dream world, but it's passed off as dream as of now. The world is too bright for her, her eyes have been closed so long.
The greens and browns of the next pages are the dampness and plantlife in the maze. It's cool and she feels somewhat comfortable there.
The project end is when she sees the minotaur and the boy fighting, and eventually escapes.
The story is a LOT longer than this, this is only about the opening 10~ minutes of it. If you are interested in what happens chat me up about it. :D
*That site may have some storyboard images I made soon, depending on if I can get them up.
little death
I handed out copies of "little death of a daily blog" in class - a short paper-based 'zine. I've been writing about my life using online web-based hypertext for eleven years, and as it happens I had a sort of conceptual and psychological break with the project a week or so before this class started. So in a way, the "little death" is a meditation on what hypertext has done to my sense of self. And what kinds of creation and intimacy are possible in a hypertext-technology mediated life.
Is it hypertext, or interactive writing? It might be meta - writing about interactive writing. But it's also lacking explicit linearity, using multiple voices from intangible sources commenting on each other. Annotation. Unfinished. Indirect. So it has qualities I associate with interactive writing.
It's a bit like my web site, in that it's sharply personal (holy smokes - I included some of my own astrological readings from 2003). But it's at least semi-permanent. I can't change what I've given you. It's printed! Oooch! That's a strange feeling. Accordingly, I think I have a sense of loathing about this - having to commit. So I'd say, it's unfinished. But so am I. It is what it is. Thanks for reading.
Peggy Asks
Our Professor asks, what kind of introductory work should this class require? Was there too little structure, just enough, or too much for the first assignment? What are opportunities that hypertext presents us as storytellers? And maybe some pitfalls -Just say "no" to drugs...
The version of Say "no" to drugs that I showed in class is posted. Please click on the CTWR 518 link and try another path.
Let me know what you think.
Shelby
February 07, 2005
the 518 board
The 518 board had a last entry of May 2004 for the past couple of days. Was that everyone or just me who saw that?
February 03, 2005
February 02, 2005
"Goodbye": A Hypertext Poem Experience
So I didn't get to present in class, but basically I have taken a poem I wrote two years ago and broken it apart with the goal of transforming it into an interactive experience. I wrote it while abroad in London my junior year at Carleton, which was a crazy time to be out of the country. I was getting more and more freaked out by world events - the downward slide towards war in Iraq, the Columbia disaster, and then Mr. Rogers passed away, which pushed me to write this poem. I don't think it's that great a poem since it is rooted in a specific time and place and so isn't really universal. However, I thought that it would be a neat experiment to try to base an interactive experience on the thoughts of the poem, try to get the user into my head on March 4, 2003.
I lay out the structure in the file linked below, but basically the user is presented with lines and words from the poem that lead them to fragments of the poem, either starting with the given line or containing the chosen word. I want the user to be able to follow whatever train of thought they find most interesting in the moment. I also have bracketed the experience - that is, there are specific entrance and exit points that the user can use whenever they wish, but the experience begins and ends as my original poem did, with the phrase "The gentle voice is gone".
If I were to expand this project for my final I would love to find a way to incorporate visual elements using headlines and photos from my trip. For next week I am going to try and see if I can get this up and running in some digital format.
Here is the file outlining my project: Download file
Let me know what you think!
Jess
Colin Son's Project
I apologize for not being in class. Sort of an unusual excuse...
However, I've enjoyed several of the projects so far and to add to that here is my first project.
What If... (Colin Son's Project)
February 01, 2005
Marlow Murder
Okay, so there's the Marlowe murder swf file.
The obligatory first post...
...and here I was thinking I'd be all cool and make that flash menu. I guess you'll have to settle for the gif and word document format.
And...no that isn't me.
My First Project
I uploaded my project to my own blog account and I'm linking to it here.
Enjoy!