Why did the Catbot cross the Road?

I didn't post very much this month. Things have been busy. Well, they're always busy, but this month was different. As some of you know, I'm now at the Lake Branch. The last few weeks have been a real pleasure, getting to know the Lake staff and community. The Library is getting ready to start computer classes at Lake, and there are more good things in store. Besides this, I've been trying to learn how to use AIML conditions. I think I'm finally getting a handle on them. And there's no better way to learn than by having a bit of fun. So...

Why did the Catbot cross the Road?

We can use conditions to code our bot to respond to this question:



<category>
<pattern>CATBOTXROAD</pattern>
<template>
<think>
<set name="topic">BOTJOKE</set>
</think>
That's a secret. I bet you can't guess why the Catbot crossed the road.
</template>
</category>

<topic name="BOTJOKE">
<category>
<pattern>_</pattern>
<template>
<think>
<set name="answr"><star/></set>
<set name="message">wrong answer</set>
<condition name="answr">

<li value="WHY GUESS"><set name="message">why guess</set></li>
<li value="* WHY GUESS"><set name="message">why guess</set></li>
<li value="WHY * GUESS"><set name="message">why guess</set></li>
<li value="WHY GUESS *"><set name="message">why guess</set></li>
<li value="* WHY * GUESS"><set name="message">why guess</set></li>
<li value="WHY * GUESS *"><set name="message">why guess</set></li>
<li value="* WHY GUESS *"><set name="message">why guess</set></li>
<li value="* WHY * GUESS *"><set name="message">why guess</set></li>

<li value="OTHER SIDE"><set name="message">right answer</set></li>
<li value="* OTHER SIDE"><set name="message">right answer</set></li>
<li value="OTHER SIDE *"><set name="message">right answer</set></li>
<li value="* OTHER SIDE *"><set name="message">right answer</set></li>

<li value="GIVE UP"><set name="message">give up</set></li>
<li value="* GIVE UP"><set name="message">give up</set></li>
<li value="GIVE UP *"><set name="message">give up</set></li>
<li value="* GIVE UP *"><set name="message">give up</set></li>

<li value="WHY"><set name="message">give up</set></li>
<li value="* WHY"><set name="message">give up</set></li>
<li value="WHY *"><set name="message">give up</set></li>
<li value="* WHY *"><set name="message">give up</set></li>

</condition>
</think>

<condition name="message">
<li value="wrong answer">No. It's not <get name="answr"/>. Guess again.</li>

<li value="why guess">It's fun. Go ahead and guess or type "I give up."</li>

<li value="right answer">No, that was the chicken. It was to get to the other side. Of the Digital Divide!
That's Librarian Humor for you.
<think>
<set name="topic"></set>
</think></li>

<li value="give up">Give up? It was to get to the other side. Of the Digital Divide!
That's Librarian Humor for you.
<think>
<set name="topic"></set>
</think></li>

</condition>
</template>
</category>
</topic>




One advantage to using conditions is that it's easier to control the topic tags. Very useful. Does this have an application beyond programming the bot with awful jokes? Yes. In fact, all of the files containing library information are being rewritten, as are those files governing searches. Lots of work, but our Emma should be in good shape for Computers in Libraries 2012! Presenters get to go free, it'll be a blast!

Cooking with Dog - How to Make Nabeyaki Udon Noodle

After a long evening of writing AIML, nothing perks me back up like a bowl of udon noodles. Here's a nice recipe for Nabeyaki Udon. There's a whole "Cooking with Dog" series on YouTube, very interesting and very cute. It's a poodle, naturally. Smart, smart dogs.

Fun with conditions

Sorry I've been away for so long. I've been in touch with one of the best AIML coders around, Steve Worswick. He's given me some assistance with using AIML conditions in Emma's brain. This is a different way of writing the code, but is much more flexible and easy to customize. So, for the last few weeks I've been learning how to use conditions properly and rewriting Emma's files. There are still quite a few to go, but I'll be finished by the end of this month.

I promise I'll also find time to blog!

A better way to answer our #1 question

You probably know that Emma's most frequently asked question is some variation of "What are your hours?" Until recently, she would respond by reading a summary of our hours. This is a rather long answer and it's not always correct, especially around the Holidays. When a user recently asked, "Are you open tomorrow?" on the day before a holiday, I began trying to program Emma to respond with the hours for a specific day. I contacted Dr. Wallace with some ideas and he put me on the right track. This is possible by using the formatted date tag. If you're unfamiliar with this formatting, or are interested in the technical details of the AIML code, follow this link.

Emma now knows what day it is and will respond with the hours for that day. She can also tell you if we're open tomorrow, or if we were open yesterday. I'm working on a separate AIML file containing holidays, so she'll know when we're closed or are closing early.

The #2 question is "Do you have eBooks?"

Happy Birthday, Emma!

Emma first appeared on our website two years ago on November 19, 2009. As we're constantly trying to improve her, it's easy to lose perspective on just how far she's come. Two years ago, Emma answered a dozen, canned questions from a drop down menu. Now she not only answers questions about the library, but she can also pass queries to our catalog, to the OhioLINK catalog, to the Ohio Web Library, to Wolfram|Alpha, and even get you a local weather forecast. She knows what day it is and can tell you the library's hours for that day. And believe it or not, these are just the first small steps.

Emma wasn't the first chatbot to be used by a library (there have been a handful of German bots since 2006) but she was the first one to go live to the public in the U.S. She's blazed a trail that others are now following - University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Akron-Summit County Public Library, and most recently the Wadsworth Public Library. As more libraries get involved, this technology will only improve, becoming more powerful and smarter.

So, what's in store for our humble Catbot? We already see her clones, "kittenbots," spreading to other libraries. Pandorabots is working to make her available to smart phones and other mobile devices, and to enable her to access information far beyond library catalogs and databases. Emma (and Siri) really are just the beginning!

My thanks to all of you who help Emma develop by chatting with her, and also to those of you who have believed in and supported this project. I've done my utmost to prove that your confidence has not been misplaced. I think the coming year will show that it has not.

Fall Cleaning

I've been putting it off for a while, but this was finally the weekend to start cleaning up Emma's brain. Kind of like raking the leaves or cleaning out the gutters; not the way you want to spend your days off, but you know it needs to be done. As you'd expect, Emma's brain developed through a number of stages. The oldest parts were generated more or less automatically by SitePal back in 2009. Not long after, I started learning how to write AIML myself. Being an ex-hornplayer and not a programmer, it took a while for me to learn good style, especially using AIML predicates. Not that the code was bad, it just needed some tidying up. And after three days and plenty of coffee it's nearly done. Now we'll have a nice, orderly foundation to build upon. And not just for Emma and MPL, but also for those using Emma's brain to make their own library bots.

Pandorabots Rock the 2011 Loebner Competition!

Exciting news from Alicebot.org
- Pandorabots made history at the 2011 Loebner Competition:


"For the first time in its history the Loebner Prize included a separate prize known as the Junior Loebner Prize in which the judging panel consisted of students between 12 and 14 years old. Our team's two entries, Zoe by Adeena Mignogna and Tutor by Ron C. Lee, tied for first place in the Junior contest. Zoe also came in second place in the main contest. Also this was the first time two finalists used the same platform, Pandorabots. Adeena, Ron, Steve Worswick, and Pandorabots engineering staff all worked together to make it a team effort.



The main contest was as usual judged by scientists, technology experts and journalists.  Typically the judges try to give the bots an IQ test with questions like, "How many syllables in the word banana?" or "Which is bigger a small mountain or a large tooth?" (not very good icebreakers in ordinary human conversation--can these judges carry on a conversation with a person?) and predictably once again the bots are pronounced "disappointing".   The junior judges have more fun with the bots, suspend their disbelief more easily, and engage in casual chat using internet slang, saying "LOL", "Wassup?" and "What did you have for breakfast?" instead of giving an IQ test.   It is as if the scientists are testing to see how much a human is like a computer, and the kids are testing to see how much the computer is like a human.



Bruce Wilcox, the winner of last year's Loebner Prize bronze medal once again took the award in the main contest this year.   No bot has yet been awarded the silver medal for passing the Turing Test."