I came across this bot recently, and I think it bears talking to. Unusually for it's kind, it doesn't actually have any canned responses. Instead, everything it says is taken from things that people have said to it, selected for probable relevance. It "learns" from everyone who talks to it, and the result often seems uncannily lucid. It's greatest flaw is a very limited working memory, but otherwise it is the best program of its sort I have ever seen.

[url=]www.jabberwacky.com[/url]

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Metaphors be with you!

Do you think that guitarwhispers may be this bot?

I still managed to confuse it, but it's pretty impressive.

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Yeah, it wins the li'l Loebner prize almost every year. Or its cousin Joan does, or some affiliated program critter. So dandy.

This is pretty good!

Jabberwacky isn't all that astounding in and of itself, but do a search for an older program like ELIZA (also called "the Doctor') and then compare. ELIZA is a more standard program that doesn't "learn," instead relying entirely on canned responses and a rudimentary grasp of sentence structure (sometimes). Having seen ELIZA and others of its ilk, my expectations for Jabberwacky were basically nil.

Sure it's easily "confused," and it has never produced an original sentence in its life, but since all of its lines were originally written by humans it manages to avoid the mechanical, ungrammatical bot-speak you would expect from it. No, I don't think it is actually intelligent or even remotely sentient, but in some sense talking to it is talking to an amalgam all of the real sentient people who have ever talked to it, because it is their responses it is printing out.

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Metaphors be with you!

"How do you play religious roulette?
bk: I don't know, how?
You remind me of my ex-girlfriend.
bk: Don't be silly, computer programmes can't date.
You said you love me.
bk: +++out of cheese error. Reload universe and re-boot+++.
You like to kill processes?"

How do I manage to get into a slanging match with a computer programme? I need help...

Look on the page of sample conversations on the site; under yesterday's conversations, the one labeled "Life, Mystery" is me.

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Metaphors be with you!

um... I think I broke it.......

Puck, the "your mom" attack was rather inspired!

Let's have a game where everyone takes turns responding to Yabbervacky in a single conversation, with the whole thing hosted on one hapless volunteer's computer (not me!).

Or maybe we could have a contest to see who can get the most example conversations posted.

Or who can lie about getting the most example convo's posted, perhaps.

re: the "your mom" attack, I just wanted to see how it would respond!

I must say, I was probably most impressed by it's recognizing the Monty Python quote and answering with "African or European?"

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Metaphors be with you!

That was good....

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland

Umm... I have a bot. I think I had a few brief conversations with it and got distracted. But meh, at least I know that I've helped bring our future AI overlords into being.

Anyway... I've wiped its memory (it didn't know much) and now I offer it up to you guys to teach the importance of fforde, cake and ... whatever else you want really.

Here he is. Enjoy:
[www.jabberwacky.com]

Rob

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That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

Cool! Our very own chatterbot!

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Metaphors be with you!

We have a chatterbot!

<sets off to corrupt it>

__________________________________
'We're all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad." [said the Cat.]
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "Or you wouldn't have come here."
- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures In Wonderland