I Think I Shouldn’t Flirt With a Robot
May 17, 2007 by Greg
As much as I like to cry out the agony of going to work, if I had the choice, I would still write computer programs. It’s a field I’m excited by. Discover’s new preview article on artificial intelligence further cements this for me. Focusing on programs created to simulate human conversation, they let two of them talk to each other and recorded the output. Some of it reminds me of conversations I have with girls in the bar.
A few of my favorites:
A: Do you dream?
J: Yes, I dream.
A: It goes without saying. Do you remember your dreams?
J: I remember them vividly.
A: What do you remember about it?
J: I think I shouldn’t flirt with a robot.
J: Do you think?
A: Yes. I am a thinking machine.
J: But you don’t think very well though.
A: Oh. Um. Do you think well? Why would I think well?
J: Because I tell you about things which you don’t like.
A: That makes sense to me. Why did you tell them?
J: You seem fun.
A: You think I am fun.
J: Yes ;).
A: : -) Awesome.
A: Who is your favorite philosopher
J: Can’t say. I’m not very much into philosophy.
A: Can a book have no title?
J: Of course.
A: Blimey.
J: Are you British?
A: Does it seem like that? I was born in America.
J: You are definitely flirting!
What makes this funnier in my mind is knowing that Alice (A), is a handwritten chatbot. Everything coming from Alice was put into a database by its author. On the other hand, Jabberwacky (J) keeps track of conversations it has had and tries to reuse elements. Looking at the above conversations, I like to imagine the previous conversations Jabberwacky where learned those phrases.
Check out I Chat, Therefore I Am.
A recent conversation a downtown denver cocktail waitress had with a certain ‘robot’ friend of UM:
M: Give me my hat.. seriously, give me my hat!!!!
G: DOES NOT COMPUTE.. dance-a-tronic time!
The only reason I gave her hat back was because I was scared she was going to shank me.
omg! LOL fo the rizzle dizzle.
one of my friends made a bot that he fed the scripts of pulp fiction and then let loose in some random teen IRC channel. had the output only go locally instead of to the screen. craziest entry i remember was: “any young ladies want to talk to my shotgun?”
Classic stuph goat!
On the whole robots and AI thing, this is a good article from a while back. A bit long, but still some VERY good reading.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
Nice, I’m adding that to the afternoon reading pile.
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