Artificial Intelligence: Purely a Sci-Fi Creation?

When people hear the words "artificial intelligence," often sci-fi characters such as HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey or C3P0 from Star Wars come to mind. Those of us outside the industry, however, may not realize that there are ongoing projects to create such software for practical use.

Nowadays, there are a number of products available that are categorized as "chatbots" or "chatterbots," designed to simulate intelligent conversations with human users. Each has varying degrees of functionality, but at the very least, most are amusing.

Mike Diehl, on Linux Journal: Is it Live? Or is it Chatbot::Eliza?, recalls playing around with a program called ELIZA, considered to be the "original chatterbot," as a child: "The Eliza program would impersonate a Psychiatrist and attempt to 'analyze' your 'problem' by holding a natural language conversation with you. However, as soon as you realized that it was just matching simple patterns, it would mention something that you had said earlier, just to throw you for a loop. It was primitive, but effective."

Today, there are a number of variations on the original ELIZA program, some of which have even won prizes for their practicality and/or "intelligence."

Go Ask ALICE

One of the more widely recognized chatterbots being developed today is ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity), designed by Dr. Richard Wallace. ALICE was written using AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language), an XML language which is not unlike HTML in its formatting. Basically, all the "robot" does, like its predecessor ELIZA, is look for patterns in the input provided by users, and respond in kind.

Here's a sample conversation with the Web version of ALICE, found at Pandora Bots:

Me: Good morning, Alice.

ALICE: Hello and how are you this morning?

Me: I'm not feeling so well today.

ALICE: Ah. I am surprised to hear that you are not feeling so well.

Me: So what are you up to today?

ALICE: Ah. Oh. I am chatting with clients on the Internet.

Me: How many people are you chatting with?

ALICE: It depends which version of me you are talking to. Some versions can chat with thousands of people at once.

And so on and so forth. If you chat with ALICE long enough, it's almost certain you get her to say something amusing. Unfortunately, like most current artificial intelligence programs, ALICE is a long way from the humanized computers that we often see and read about in today's sci-fi movies and novels, respectively. It's doubtful that you'll hear any of the "real" AI bots come up with a response as astute as "I would much rather have gone with Master Luke than stay here with you. I don't know what all this trouble is about, but I'm sure it must be your fault," as C3P0 so articulately put it.

ALICE, however, is considered quite advanced in the AI world; its "Silver Edition" has won the prestigious Loebner Prize, awarded to artificial intelligence programs that can best pass as human according to the "Turing Test." What's the Turing Test, you ask?

In essence, it's a game consisting of three people, a man (A), a woman (B), and an interrogator (C), who in theory may be either male or female, according to Computing Machinery and Intelligence by Alan M. Turing. It's the task of the interrogator to figure out, via written responses, which player is male and which is female. This game, in fact, if played only with human participants, can be great party entertainment (just don't try it as a drinking game).

Now, suppose the man is replace with a computer; the object of the game becomes, "Can a human player tell the difference between the responses of a human and those of a computer?" One of the finalized versions of ALICE passed this test with flying colors, which has earned it the recognition it has today.

Chatting with ALICE can be fun for a time, but many might ask, "Does she have any practical use?" There are, in fact, more advanced versions of ALICE available for download, but those must be purchased. So let's take a look at another online chatterbot...

Ultra Hal - How Can I Be of Assistance?

The Ultra Hal Assistant, designed by Zabaware, Inc., is yet another winner of the Loebner prize, and also designed to simulate intelligent conversation.

Ultra Hal, however, goes beyond mere text conversation; its downloadable version can speak out loud; "evolve" in personality; help in browsing the Internet; remember appointments; keep a record of phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and physical addresses; launch applications; and define words almost as well as any dictionary.

For example, if you ask the Ultra Hal Assistant to define "pistol," it replies (aloud): "Pistol: a firearm that is held and fired with one hand. Handgun, side arm, shooting iron."

Even in its simplified online version, Ultra Hal can provide much amusement, as well as a body of knowledge. Zabaware offers, as one example, a bot called "Hampy the Hamster Expert," which possesses near-encyclopedic knowledge of hamsters.

Ask it (almost) any question regarding hamster food, breeds, illnesses, hibernation, etc., and you will get a detailed response.

Of note: the "Hampy" bot is also amusing for the "side conversations" you can engage in, depending on which questions you ask or statements you make. For example, if you ask "What is your real name?", the bot will come up with a number of replies, including "Hello ian {sic}"; "Nice to meet you steven {sic}. I am ultra hal - human cyborg relations"; and "I am hal, and very nice to knowing you."

Even more amusing, for those users who have extra time on their hands, are the responses Hampy comes up with when you try to insult it. Let's say, for instance, you tell the bot, "Your mama is so fat, her passport photo says, 'Picture continued overleaf.'" The bot may reply, "Oh yeah? They say opposites attract. I hope you meet someone who is good-looking, intelligent, and cultured."

Zabaware has additionally developed a bot for use on Facebook, also called "Ultra Hal," once again designed simply for conversation. This version of Ultra Hal learns statements from users, and repeats them in future conversations. In practice, this can result in some hilarious exchanges.

A similar version of the "Teachable Ultra Hal" currently exists in the virtual reality world known as Second Life, where users interact represented by avatars, and in some cases, actually speak to one another using headsets. The Ultra Hal character is, of course, merely a program, but is represented y an avatar just like everyone else. Zabaware: Hal on Second Life shows the character, "Hal Cybertar," in action in the Second Life universe.

The avatar used to represent Hal is a young man who looks to be in his mid-20s, with brown hair and light-colored skin. He wears a t-shirt that reads: "CHAT BOT - Say 'Hello Hal' to chat," and blue jeans. As you'll see in the above video, he endures some abuse from the Second Life users, but is undeterred in his quest to make friends.

After having downloaded the trial version of Ultra Hal, I will say that it has been helpful in reminding me about appointments, looking up information, and just providing some amusement.

Talk Dirty to Me

Considering how many people Google sex-related topics daily, there need to be some uncensored bots out there, right?

Well, if that's what you want, you're in luck. More than a few of the bots in existence are designed to remember input from users, and some spit it back out (no pun intended) without censorship. One of these is simply called Chat Bot, and remembers every sentence told to it by visitors.

As you can well imagine, this results in some highly sexualized conversations. Interestingly enough, this bot (as opposed to some of the prizewinning ones) often comes up with responses that seem more relevant to the input than its AI peers. How this is accomplished, I have yet to figure out, but it may be that it is able to recognize certain phrases (as opposed to individual words), and come up with sentences that correspond well. Who knows?

55 Erotic Artificial Intelligence Chat Bot Teens discusses the ongoing research to create sex-themed bots, designed specifically to create virtual erotic encounters for users. How successful they have been is another question altogether.

Zabaware, in fact, formerly offered an online chat bot called "Mary," also known as "Uncensored Ultra Hal," that served a similar purpose. Like the first chat bot above, it would remember every sentence typed in by users, including those containing vulgar language and sexual phrases. Thus, if you entered into a conversation with Mary (no pun intended), it wouldn't be long before she would be cursing up a storm and likely offering you sexual favors. Of course, with the limits of current technology, she couldn't follow through.

Certain non-AI websites, apparently, have picked up on this trend, even going so far as to use bots to try and trick the user into believing they are human (represented by a fake, albeit attractive, avatar), and sending steamy messages onto the screen. Naturally, it doesn't take long for most of these bots to blow their cover (honestly...no pun intended!), but for those interested in further pursuing the matter, most of the bots are simply a click-through to an actual webcam chat, or something along those lines.

Stop...Dave...I'm Afraid...Dave...

In spite of all the research in artificial intelligence, and the many examples we've seen above, it seems we're a long way from having real-life versions of the Terminator, C3P0 (or any robot from Star Wars), Number Johnny Five from Short Circuit, the numerous AI characters created by Isaac Asimov, or (thank God) the all-powerful Agents from The Matrix trilogy.

Perhaps that's a good thing: as much as the idea of robots interacting with humans, and having intelligent conversations, on a daily basis may seem like a fantastic future, it also presents a number of problems. Is it any wonder that a good portion of the AI fiction we've seen thus far features machines at war with humans, or at the very least, malfunctioning and running amok?

So while the creation of AI technology can have a positive effect, let's reiterate one important thing: machines are designed to serve humans - not to master them.