Saturday, February 14, 2009

Seeking Inspiration from a Little Artificial Intelligence

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Ever heard of Jabberwacky's Cleverbot? My daughter offered an introduction. Cleverbot is different. Doing my typical thing, I googled to get answers. When I didn't find anything there (okay, so I am not the most patient person), I moved to http://www.dogpile.com./

Of course, I didn't look far...meaning I didn't research enough to find answers. Let's face it...I simply don't care that much. Here's what I found: "Jabberwacky is an artificial intelligence (AI)-a chat robot, often known as a 'chatbot' or 'chatterbot'. It aims to simulate natural human chat in an interesting, entertaining and humorous manner."

My daughter and I played with it for a little while and had a few good laughs. Enough laughing that my husband wanted to know what was so funny! We also believe we discovered the secret behind Cleverbot. I'll not reveal that, though, unless you email me privately. But, we really had fun with it after that. :)

Yesterday, I decided to revisit Cleverbot to help me come up with a new post for this blog. This week the well was running a little dry. And I thought...what the heck!

So I visited Cleverbot and typed the following.

Allyn: I need material for my blog. Any ideas?

Cleverbot: What do you need to know for school?

Allyn: No, not school. I need an idea for my next blog post.

Cleverbot: Those motives sound questionable.

Allyn: Interesting. Really, I promise my motives are pure. I am just looking for inspiration.

Cleverbot: You won't make friends by inferring that I'm not interesting enough to care about.

Allyn: Hmmm. That's not what I had in mind. I need to write something thoughtful or meaningful.

Cleverbot: What is your favorite song?

Allyn: No. That's not going to work either.

Cleverbot: You aren't into inversion.

Allyn: Nope. No good. Doesn't fit with the theme of my blog.

Cleverbot: You seem very wise. (Exact words, pinky swear. At this point, I'm thinking AI is a good thing.)

Allyn: That's why I write a blog!

Cleverbot: Want to hear another?

Allyn: What? Oh never mind... (At this point, I shut her down. We weren't getting anywhere and I still had a post to write.)

Turns out Cleverbot didn't help me at all. Let's just say I'm not that impressed with this version of AI. But not all was lost because maybe, just maybe, I've introduced something new to you. And, you can go check it out for yourself when you are in between tasks or projects, or simply killing time.

Would love to know what you think about the experience. And if you want to know what I really think about Cleverbot, email me!

Allyn Evans
http://www.allynevans.com/
info at allynevans.com
P.S. I caught a few inappropriate references (adult content). So caution is advised to parents. I have asked my daughter to only visit Cleverbot when I am with her.

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8 comments:

L. Diane Wolfe said...

I used to use a voice mailbox service, and Cleverbot's answers remind me of the responses I used to get from "Kate!"

So much for the intelligence part...
But it's good for a laugh!

L. Diane Wolfe
www.circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com
www.spunkonastick.net
www.thecircleoffriends.net

Jewel Sample said...

The AI interaction with me was not that humorous. I asked a question about rocks and got one response with a google ad not relating to the question. Then it asked me what I liked in my coffee and another google ad relating to coffee popped up at the bottom. Clever way to glean information about what people have on their minds in order to google ad them. I wonder how many people click on the ads and if sales go up?

Prill Boyle said...

What a hoot!

Allyn Evans said...

I didn't have any troubles with pop-up screens. But that's probably because my security system blocks them all.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson said...

Surprisingly, I would say your bot does about as well as humans do with communication--or at least as well as I do with my husband on some days.

This is a hoot!

Best,
Carolyn Howard-Johnson

Anonymous said...

All I know is that Cleverbot and I actually got into a fight. Reminds me of an email communication breakdown I had with an ex boyfriend many years ago . . . because there was no inflection of voice, we completely misunderstood each other. Obviously, before emoticons . . .

Anonymous said...

interesting - think I will leave well enough alone and stick to human interaction while I (we) still can!!! :)

Anonymous said...

ohmygosh, this is the funniest post ever!

"You are very wise!" cracked me up!