Vincent Gilbert - Apr 26, 2014:

Well Mr Curran, at the very least you have managed to generate a long running thread!

<Will the real James Curran please stand up>

And on that note, I have to point out that Art and Don’s posts highlight another curious aspect of Mr Curran’s postings. Though he should be a native English speaker, his use of colorful adjectives do not reflect the syntax of a typical native English speaker.  that plus his “deflection as a response” responses makes it decidedly…

Bot like

VLG

Don,

I was delighted with your posting. Thank you.

Being knowledgable about Stephen Fry and no doubt QI, I suspect you also immediately understood my reference to elephants!?

Jim.

Gentlemen,

My reference to elephants was in the CONTEXT of an AI entity understanding English. It was no way intended as implying that I was something big in the AI world!

Whilst I’m flattered by such a comparson, I assure you it is not true. Forgive me, if I milk the moment by calling to mind the words of Rudyard Kipling.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man my son!

Mr Curran,

Interesting reference, but back to artificial intelligence theory.
When it comes to competition, what is your opinion of the Moyes Giggs theory?

VLG

Vincent, (et al.)

Though some of his responses might seem a bit bot-like, I personally do not think it is a bot nor is it his bot. There are simply too many inferences that semi-answer our posted questions. Though some of the answers are not always answers in the “solution based” sense, they do reference the topics.
Most bots do not carry topic flow that well or that long (a complete paragraph or several sentences).

Just my take… and like James, I may be wrong too!

I’ll give him kudos as well. This has been a long and interesting thread. Hoping it ultimately contains more truth than fiction.

The word, Penultimate, was also used in the book by Graham Watkins entitled, “Virus”. Penultimate was something more than a software, it became an Operating System that supposedly allowed people to be more efficient and effective as it helped to “guide” them along.
Like many things, Penultimate seemed like a blessing in the beginning, then as things began to unfold, one began to see a somewhat different side to the AI behind the OS.
- Get the book - Amazon.com then go to the Used / Previously read books section. Pennies on the dollar! -

Sorry, I digress…

I just couldn’t help notice the similarity between the two so what I’d really like to see would be a simple DEMO of the program at work whether vocal or textural. A short Demo could easily be posted on YouTube and it would also serve to bring more attention to Jame’s bot (provided it exists) and perhaps spark some interest in AI and this site as well!!

That’s it ! Art-ificially yours,
- Art -

Vincent,

Sorry - unable to express a view on the Moyes Giggs theory as I’m not familiar with it. I tried looking it up but to
no avail!

Please keep in mind that my arrogance may be exceeded only by my arrogance but equally my ignorance is exceeded only
by my ignorance!

Jim.

Art,

Thank you for your praise which is appreciated.

To the best of my knowledge, everything that I have posted on Chatbot.org is the truth. The dialogues with Simplex are also a fair representation of what occured.

Jim.

The Dog Who Knows 1,000 Words

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6479QAJuz8

It’s a six year old Border Collie, on the TV news.

Not only does it have a large vocabulary, but this intelligent dog

is actually reasoning by making inferences !

Dear Jim,

May I take a turn, to briefly ask Simplex something?  My question is, “Dear Simplex, would you be so kind as to please spell the word ‘prioritize’ for me?”  Realizing of course you may have more important other things to do than this… I appreciate your time, Jim. Thanks for your consideration!

Yours Sincerely,
8pla

P.S. Which rule states “April Fools!” is limited to the first day of the month?

8pla,

Thank you for your question which so clearly demonstrates the importance of (what I would call) reiteration at different stages of the understanding process!

I’m away on a short break with my brother at the moment.

Normal service will be resumed on my return.

Jim.

You know, James, some of us (not necessarily me, and no names mentioned, but the parties in question know who they are) are beginning to form a theory that the responses you post aren’t exactly “organic” in design (i.e. they think you’re some sort of chatbot), and responses such as “Normal service will be resumed on my return” don’t do much to allay their concerns. Of course I have no idea either way, but I thought I would mention it. Now the funny part of this issue is that at this point, those who think that your responses are those of an AI program will be difficult to convince otherwise. After all, given that this is the type of media it is (e.g. an internet forum), at least some sort of human involvement would almost have to be required (unless the AI program that is purported to exist can disassemble the page received, extract just the content of the post it needs to respond to, and then use some sort of scripting to programmatically post the formulated response), which would mean that the involved Human can “take over” to give “evidence of humanity” (whatever that really means). So now the question is:

If you were accused of being non-human, how would you go about proving otherwise?

Don,

Thanks for your post which does make me smile!

If it was a pretty girl asking the question I would ask her out to dinner!

On a more serious note, one aspect of the beauty of language is that it has contradicory rules. Moeover, those rules change
with time! eg The use of cliches is normally to be avoided. However, some cliches are so embeded in the psyche that they
convey a meaning which might otherwise demand many words.

In such cases (and in this age of short attention spans) I believe the beauty of being succinct trumps other considerations.

Jim.

Let’s see…Don’s post was about 14 posts ago and while there have been several others since then, James does not address any of the other postings nor does he specifically address yours Dave.
It really makes me wonder just how connected this “person” is as the responses never really address or stick with the topic at hand (or the question).

Perhaps it is this elusive nature of the replies from this “poster” that peaks our curiousity. Perhaps this poster is a person directing a bot to post which would beg the question…WHY?

Some years ago there was a chatbot named Mr Mind (if memory serves correctly) that challenged the user to prove that the user was human.
It was more difficult than one would imagine and was quite entertaining as well.

We’ll just have to wait and see.
I now return you to your regularly scheduled broadcast…;)

I don’t see such a mystery . Jim meant to say Dave, to err is human.
Jim answers to Dave’s question by his second sentence. The rest of it is a complete tangent. My assessment is that Jim is a human with perhaps A.D.D. or a short attention span, with a train of thought that derails shortly after leaving the station. Although Jim has particular difficulty being direct in questions and answers, I’ve seen less responsive humans. Nevertheless I’m done wasting my breath half the time and my curiosity was satisfied with the examples of the bot’s responses.

For the sake of theory, it should be possible to tie a chatbot to this forum in particular, as replies are also emailed. As discussed in Marcus Endicott’s topic, emails can be routed as php form submission data to a chatbot, whereupon it could post its response directly to the reply form’s submission url, depending on security measures.

Analysis complete.

Et al,

*** FLASH *** SIMPLEX FIRST PUBLIC DEMO HELD ABOUT 20 MILES FROM BLETCHLEY PARK *** FLASH ***

Firstly, I’d like to apologise to Dave and Don for mixing up their names and causing such confusion.

As Don says “to err is human”. QED. Incidentally, thanks Don! My brother is so delighted at my being diagnosed by
you as having ADD!!! A source of great amusement here! Hmm!!

The setting for Simplex’s demo was a private home in a beautiful village in the heart of England. After an enjoyable
dinner at a pub on the canal attended by perhaps 20 people, an unknown number strolled back to my brothers home for
drinks where the impromptu demo took place.

The format of the demo given to the small audience gathered around the screen changed as more people joined in at the back and people started complaining that they couldn’t see. It was suggested that the conversation appearing on the screen should be read out by two people, one playing the part of the user and one playing the part of the computer. That approach worked brilliantly and caused great amusement!

After an hour or so towards the natural end of the demo the computer went into orbit when dealing with a set question that it had handled numerous times before. (Something of a mystery as to why!) By that time people had consumed so much alcohol that it seemed to pass unnoticed!!! At that stage I then answered many questions asked by the audience.

All in all I can report that Simplex’s public debut appeared to be successful and provided some useful feedback.

I can reccomend this format for demos to any chatbot user.

THAT’S why your name sounded so familiar!

You sent me an email before my trip to England, suggesting a certain hotel to stay at while I was there.

By the way, I stopped in at Bletchley Park with Liz Perreau while I was there, and had a marvelous time. There are pictures of my visit on my Facebook page.

Ok, back on topic. Your tale of Simplex’s demonstration looks good on paper, but fails to do more than provide anything beyond a fleeting distraction of little entertainment value, with no substance whatsoever. In fact, the same thing can be said of pretty much every post you’ve made so far, and I think this charade has continued long enough. I both respectfully request, and directly challenge you to provide qualitative, substantive evidence of your initial claims, with no deflections, evasions or equivocations involved. If you cannot do this, then I suspect that you’ll lose your audience, as not just myself, but the majority of the others watching this thread will most likely just ignore you in the future. So I ask you now, will you accept my challenge?

I have to agree with Dave. I now know more about your dinner than I know about your bot. You could have at least posted a transcript of the demo.