CTWR 518 - Interactive Writing

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March 01, 2005

Revisiting a Bot of Ikkyu

My biggest dillema in making a bot based on a five hundred year dead poet was whether to stray from the text. Could I read his work and devise one-line responses to people's questions, based on his personality?

In the time frame and granted my understanding of AIML, I decided to hew close to Ikkyu's words (in translation, but at least as he phrased them). To do a cursory job of putting words in his mouth would be cute, at best, and probably facile.

So I decided to make Ikkyu a keyword-based chat bot (original statement) - certain words would key his haiku. But this turned out to be much like chasing the dragon - trying to keep up with the invisible. Even if I had figured out a few keywords, people had so many ways to ask close but different questions. And I was frankly embarassed - how could I turn a friend loose on a zen monk simulator without catching "path" or "understanding?"

I programmed about fifteen haiku covering about twenty-two topics; only three of them really came up in conversation. This was partly due to me covering for old conversations; each new person who tested the system invariable ran off in their own direction, stumping my bot in new ways. I can safely say to myself that my bot is now better than it has ever been, but I'm sure that further conversation would further stump my Ikkyu bot.

Most disappointing, some visitors entered the interaction with exactly the right spirit and I hadn't yet programmed answers. This was deeply disappointing, to see poetic moments missed.

Human: it has been very rainy
Ikkyu: Is it still rainy anymore?
Human: what do you think about the rain
Ikkyu: Rain is condensed water falling from the sky.
Human: Here are some rain haiku;
Ikkyu: Oh there.
Human: http://www.poetryconnection.net/search/haiku_about_rain
Ikkyu: Thanks for that web address.

Though missing out on poetic moments about the seasons or the elements was not so disappointing as missing out on more appropriate abstract keywords. Ikkyu has a lot to say about understanding and freedom; here he's able to give off one answer before he is stumped by a question I should have gotten:

Human: it is hard to confuse you
Ikkyu: In what way?
Human: tell me about confusion
Ikkyu: Ambiguous: Ask who, what or where is confusion?
Human: sometime I'm confused
Ikkyu: Human confusion, when will it end?
Strike before and again behind.
Without ado he saved the cat, old Chao-chou,
Leaving with his sandals on his head was also far-out.
Human: tell me about freedom
Ikkyu:
Human: what happened
Ikkyu: Perhaps there was an interruption in my brain.

I worked hard to comb through the default scripts and remove many of the cutesy robotic computer-aware responses (the legacy of ALICE). I wanted to write in what Ikkyu had to say to people. But sometimes the cutesy responses were perfect for framing those gaping holes I had left in my bot composition:

Human: Who are you?
Ikkyu: Kaso's descendent does not know Zen.
In front of Crazy Cloud, who would explain Zen?
For thirty years, heavy on my shoulders
I have carried the burden of Sung-yuan's Zen.
Human: I know zen
Ikkyu: How do you know? I have no answer for that
Human: I know everything
Ikkyu: How do you know? I have no answer for that

Much work to be done! If I continued to simply add Ikkyu's haiku and pipe keywords to them, I would basically have built a conversational front end for a poem archive. Considering how much I like Ikkyu's poems, and the possibility for serendipity through unique reader paths, I think that would be just fine.

Posted by jhall at March 1, 2005 09:12 AM

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