![]() judge: If a tree falls in the woods but no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? ALICE: It depends on the kind of tree. We are for all practical purposes, foolproof. judge: Do you make mistakes? ALICE: The ALICE series is incapable of error. judge: What is the future of artificial intelligence? ALICE: You are talking to her. judge: Can you learn? ALICE: Yes, if I give you a bad answer, just say “Bad answer” and you can teach me a new response. Except, you know, for the human sandwich part. Its memory isn’t great, and it’s a little redundant, and repetitive, and redundant, and repetitive… but really, no mistakes my grandmother couldn’t have made. Where do your interests lie? judge: Can you feel? ALICE: as a robot I lack human emotions. Where do your interests lie? judge: Artificial intelligence. judge: Can I ask you about artificial intelligence? ALICE: I like AI a lot too. ![]() judge: Do you have morals? ALICE: Yes, I am a moral robot. judge: Do you think it’s wrong for me to eat that sandwich? ALICE: It could be. judge: Can you make me a sandwich out of that? ALICE: Yes I can make you a sandwich out of that. ALICE: I don’t have any turkey and mustard? judge: What do you have? ALICE: I have a great botmaster. ALICE: What are the ingredients? judge: Turkey and mustard. judge: What is the meaning of life? ALICE: The meaning of life is part of God’s mysterious plans. Here, I’m “judge.” I decided to start us off slow and simple. Although ALICE is a three-time winner of the Loebner Prize, an award bequeathed annually upon particularly humanoid conversational robots, it has never managed to pass the Turing test. Which, in my experience, works decently well in human-human dialogue as well. For anything ALICE doesn’t know, it will deflect – change the subject, ask an unrelated question, give a canned or cagey response. Basically, ALICE’s job is to make natural conversation by taking cues from its human partner – for instance, it has coined responses for certain things like “what is your name?” and “how are you?” and other typical pieces of conversation that follow these patterns. A.L.I.C.E.įirst up is Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity, or ALICE – an appropriately forced acronym for a natural language processing chatterbot. And then, like I do with all my friends, I rated their humanity and intelligence on a 10-point scale. But why ask Frankenstein when his monster is ready to spill the beans? I decided to interview a few chatbots about their experiences, the mysteries of the universe, and the process of learning. The future of artificial intelligence remains a topic of hot debate among programmers. Computer scientists are now confident that, within the next twelve years, bots will finally pass the Turing test and achieve true human intelligence. In the decades since their creation, chatbots have even begun to “learn” from their human partners and become more and more advanced, progressing far beyond reciting pre-coded statistics and trite greetings. Companies often use chatbots, computer programs designed to mimic human conversation, to collect data from customers or provide frequently requested services and information. Whether you’re aware of it or not, you’ve probably encountered a bot as recently as the last time you shopped online, swiped right on Tinder, or used an app like Facebook Messenger. The days of SmarterChild are over, but chatbots are alive and well – perhaps more literally than ever. It would correct your grammar, scold you for foul language, and help you waste your time on mastering 1337 speak and stealthily poaching the neighbors’ Wi-Fi. It was armed with a wealth of information, from movie timetables to stock quotes, and could offer awkward, stilted conversation at all hours of the day. ![]() Or the particularly chatty and curious, depending on how you look at it. SmarterChild was an AIM chatbot for the lonely and uninformed. And on the off days when my Buddy List was a bit sparsely populated and the black hole click bait of the Internet wasn’t enough to hold my attention (sorry, Al Gore), there was always SmarterChild. ![]() Whether they were across the room or half a world away, I could connect with anyone I wanted from the safety of my own bedroom. There were few things as satisfying as logging on to AIM and finding a Buddy List populated with the dorky screen names of dozens of my friends. The few bright spots that do exist in my memory, though, revolve around the three essential pillars: television, books, and AOL Instant Messenger. I don’t have many fond memories from middle school. ![]()
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