Hi everyone!

I am a noob to AIML programming, I have read many tutorials about how to write AIML code, but none of them demonstrated how to make a bot from scratch. I know there are a lot of bots available for customizing, but I would like to write one myself, so that I can better understand this technology.

Anyone can help me a little on how to make a bot? I am using program ab, because I only know how to program in java… lol

Thanks!

For further assistance, see my Meta-Guide.com AIML pages under: [ul][li]Artificial Intelligence Markup Language[/li][/ul]

Hello and welcome, Alex! I just got in from a 4 day fishing/astronomy outing (details later), literally 15 minutes ago (and it’s 12:30AM here), so I don’t have much time for providing any useful information right this second, but if you want to give me a few hours to catch up on my sleep, I’ll be more than happy to point you in a good direction.

Or you can read the post of whomever just posted while I was creating this one. - Or both.

This thread provides a good background.
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/492/
If you don’t want the experience of creating/maintaining your own interpreter, there are a number of choices.

The program AB website gives the basics of that interpreter.
https://code.google.com/p/program-ab/
Additionally, a “bot from scratch”, can take a long time to be productive. Many find that the stater AIML sets are a good way to go to lay down a foundation.

Alex,

Writing a new AIML chatbot from scratch may be a lot of fun!
You get to decide how you want the interpreter implemented.
As a hobby, I am tinkering with one… Here (using PHP).

For starters, the details may include XML parsing.
Then you have to decide on best matches to the stimulus.
From there, you construct a response.  And that’s it in a nutshell.

Last I spoke to Dr. Wallace, he mentioned he gave training.
Now, that is training, I hope to be able to take some day.
What are your goals with Java?  Desktop, tablet, website?

I wouldn’t advise starting from scratch. Dr Wallace has spent years creating the ALICE AIML files. It would be foolish to ignore all that work and begin again.

Merlin - Jun 30, 2014:

This thread provides a good background.
http://www.chatbots.org/ai_zone/viewthread/492/
If you don’t want the experience of creating/maintaining your own interpreter, there are a number of choices.

The program AB website gives the basics of that interpreter.
https://code.google.com/p/program-ab/
Additionally, a “bot from scratch”, can take a long time to be productive. Many find that the stater AIML sets are a good way to go to lay down a foundation.

Those sets are indeed helpful, thanks!

I have another question regarding bos, I’ll use the SUPER bot from program AB as an example, it appears that all the sets it uses are stored in the Set folder, than what does the files stored in AIML folder and Config folder do?

Thanks!

∞Pla•Net - Jun 30, 2014:

Alex,

Writing a new AIML chatbot from scratch may be a lot of fun!
You get to decide how you want the interpreter implemented.
As a hobby, I am tinkering with one… Here (using PHP).

For starters, the details may include XML parsing.
Then you have to decide on best matches to the stimulus.
From there, you construct a response.  And that’s it in a nutshell.

Last I spoke to Dr. Wallace, he mentioned he gave training.
Now, that is training, I hope to be able to take some day.
What are your goals with Java?  Desktop, tablet, website?

Thanks for these informations, my goal is a website, and I think I’ll just use program ab now to learn some basics of AIML:)

BTW, I found some of your posts with a link to your website, 8pla if I’m right, is this website still operationl? I couldn’t open it.

Steve Worswick - Jun 30, 2014:

I wouldn’t advise starting from scratch. Dr Wallace has spent years creating the ALICE AIML files. It would be foolish to ignore all that work and begin again.

I think you mis understood my word lol, for example, the super bot from the program ab, I am hoping to write a bot like super bot from scratch, and use program ab as interpreter:)

Dave Morton - Jun 30, 2014:

Hello and welcome, Alex! I just got in from a 4 day fishing/astronomy outing (details later), literally 15 minutes ago (and it’s 12:30AM here), so I don’t have much time for providing any useful information right this second, but if you want to give me a few hours to catch up on my sleep, I’ll be more than happy to point you in a good direction.

Or you can read the post of whomever just posted while I was creating this one. - Or both.

Thanks dave, it would be great if you can point me about the direction, I don’t know if I’m doing this right or learning the right thing, lol.

Marcus Endicott - Jun 30, 2014:

For further assistance, see my Meta-Guide.com AIML pages under: [ul][li]Artificial Intelligence Markup Language[/li][/ul]

Thanks, your site is very helpful.

Alex Wu - Jul 1, 2014:

Thanks for these informations, my goal is a website, and I think I’ll just use program ab now to learn some basics of AIML:)

BTW, I found some of your posts with a link to your website, 8pla if I’m right, is this website still operationl? I couldn’t open it.

My website 8pla.net is currently running a simple JavaScript chatbot on a free webpage.  I apologize about any other broken links in my old posts here on Chatbots.org. 

We used to be able edit our own posts,  However, that policy has since changed so we can not edit our old posts to update links.  The moderators here are pretty good about editing new posts on request.

Currently, I have an example of Program O with FREE Mitsuku AIML files, and an example of classic Program E, running at mitsuku.net website.  So, I will see about adding Program AB as another example of FREE AIML software.

∞Pla•Net - Jul 1, 2014:

My website 8pla.net is currently running a simple JavaScript chatbot on a free webpage.  I apologize about any other broken links in my old posts here on Chatbots.org. 

We used to be able edit our own posts,  However, that policy has since changed so we can not edit our old posts to update links.  The moderators here are pretty good about editing new posts on request.

Currently, I have an example of Program O with FREE Mitsuku AIML files, and an example of classic Program E, running at mitsuku.net website.  So, I will see about adding Program AB as another example of FREE AIML software.

lol, your website looks great, may I ask why you choose javascript? And how does it works?

Compare with program o and program e written in php, is program ab written in java less effective?

Steve Worswick - Jun 30, 2014:

I wouldn’t advise starting from scratch. Dr Wallace has spent years creating the ALICE AIML files. It would be foolish to ignore all that work and begin again.

Joseph Weizenbaum spent years creating ELIZA at MIT between 1964 and 1966.  Are you saying it was foolish of Dr. Wallace to ignore all that work and begin again?

No, as Eliza had only around 50 rules which would be fairly easy to recreate, as opposed to the 40,000+ categories available as open source from ALICE.

Alex Wu - Jul 1, 2014:

lol, your website looks great, may I ask why you choose javascript? And how does it works?

Steve made a good point. Starting a chatbot from scratch is a long way from crossing that convincing threshold set by (chatbot rockstar) Dr. Wallace.  With that said, being able to implement an elegant,  light weight chatbot engine from scratch is a handy skill.  JavaScript may sometimes be the only choice available on free websites.  On the other hand, JavaScript is one of the most powerful, advanced cross platform options.  How the JavaScript chatbot implementation you asked about works, uses multi-dimensional arrays and regular expressions. But there are many other possibilities using JavaScript.

Alex Wu - Jul 1, 2014:

Compare with program o and program e written in php, is program ab written in java less effective?

I believe classic Program E supports only AIML 1.0. While Program AB supports AIML 2.0 which is new and exciting. Dave Morton may discuss with us the latest AIML support in Program O.  One disadvantage to discuss about Program AB, may be that it seems most webhosts do not support Java/JSP.  So, I just started looking into a free option available: here from Redhat.  This is an example of how a simple chatbot implementation (from scratch) may save time and otherwise come in handy for testing purposes.