This should be interesting….

I get many people talking to my chatbots and the younger ones especially, have terrible spelling and grammar. I have to make it so that the chatbot can understand any input from them and so I don’t place any rules of grammar very highly on my chatbots.

Steve, please cast your vote

Already did Victor. I chose “i don’t care about grammar at all”

Ok, cool, thanks.

Voted, looking forward to the results.

I’m kind of torn here. Personally, I (like Victor) think that proper grammar is central to “basic understanding”; and not just so that the bot (AI interface, whatever) can fully understand a “properly phrased” input, but also to provide valuable insights into any inputs that aren’t quite so well formed, as well.

That said, though, Morti’s current incarnation is a simple AIML chatbot, which relies on pattern matching to produce the desired results, so grammar, in and of itself, is insufficient to the task of understanding what the user means. Like Steve, I also get a lot of folks who seem to have received their grammar education out of a Cracker Jack box . Thus, a rather large (and time consuming) part of Morti’s script is a spell-checker and substitution engine, to deal with “netspeak” and other (now common) idioms.

The way the poll is set up, the ‘grammar-focus’ camp is currently trailing

3:49 PM , 14 Feb 2011 it is:

not central, grammar will be learned 2
grammar first, higher concepts after 3
i don’t care about grammar at all 2
have not decided 0

who answered grammar will be learned or I don’t care?

I actually miss an option like:
grammar is important, though mood recognition is more important.

The poll suggest that either grammar is the most important thing in the world, or nothing at all. There no option ‘in between’.

lol, yes, I should have taken a bit longer in the poll.  I may make another one.

The basic idea though, at the time I got the idea, was to get a feel for how much other bot developers feel that grammar is important and should be first.

Anyway…. hurray for grammar… 4 !!

Steve answered I don’t care I think—bad boy.  Just kidding Steve—the usage for his bot dictates his decision.

Hans was probably the learn grammar, which will be a very cool thing for a bot to have ability to do.

Victor Shulist - Feb 14, 2011:

Anyway…. hurray for grammar… 4 !!

Both other options are putting grammar as less (or not) important, so for now it’s a tie

ahhh.. I suppose you have a point there Hans.

Looks like someone joined me!
I regularly get inputs like, “awrite m8, howz u 2nite?” and if the bot doesn’t give a sensible reply, it gets accused of being, “u dum bot”.

I once made a list of how many different ways my users had said FAVORITE/FAVOURITE:

FAFORITE
FAOURITE
FAOURTIE
FAOUVORITE
FARORITE
FARVOURITE
FARVURITE
FAUVORIT
FAUVORITE
FAUVOURITE
FAV
FAVAORITE
FAVAOURITE
FAVARAT
FAVARUOT
FAVE
FAVEIROUTE
FAVEIRTE
FAVEORATE
FAVEORIT
FAVEORITE
FAVEOURITE
FAVERAT
FAVERATE
FAVERET
FAVERIOT
FAVERIOTE
FAVERIOUT
FAVERIT
FAVERITE
FAVEROT
FAVEROTE
FAVEROUT
FAVEROUTE
FAVERT
FAVERTE
FAVIORATE
FAVIORIET
FAVIORITE
FAVIOROTE
FAVIORTE
FAVIOURET
FAVIOURITE
FAVIOUT
FAVIOUTE
FAVIRATE
FAVIRET
FAVIRITE
FAVIROT
FAVIROTE
FAVIROUT
FAVIROUTE
FAVIRTE
FAVIRTOT
FAVOIRATE
FAVOIRITE
FAVOIROT
FAVOIRTE
FAVOITE
FAVOIURITE
FAVOOURITE
FAVORAIT
FAVORAITE
FAVORATE
FAVORETE
FAVORIDE
FAVORIT
FAVORITE BEST
FAVORIUTE
FAVOROITE
FAVOROTE
FAVOROUTE
FAVORT
FAVORTIE
FAVORTITE
FAVORUITE
FAVORUT
FAVORUTE
FAVOTIE
FAVOTIRE
FAVOUIRITE
FAVOUITE
FAVOURAT
FAVOURATE
FAVOURED
FAVOURIE
FAVOURIRITE
FAVOURIT
FAVOURITES
FAVOURITTE
FAVOURT
FAVOURTE
FAVOURTIE
FAVOUT
FAVOUTE
FAVOYRITE
FAVPORITE
FAVRAT
FAVRET
FAVRETE
FAVRIOT
FAVRIOTE
FAVRIOUT
FAVRIOUTE
FAVRITE
FAVROIT
FAVROITE
FAVROT
FAVROTE
FAVROUIT
FAVROUITE
FAVROURITE
FAVROUT
FAVROUTE
FAVRROTTE
FAVUORITE
FAVURITE
FAVUROTE

and I get more every day! I have to replace all those with FAVORITE and that’s just one word

Unfortunately, if I turned everyone away who spoke like that, I would have a fraction of the chatlogs I have now. Keeping up with teen talk is a necessary evil and so I can’t place too much importance on spelling and grammar.

Perhaps a better poll structure would be:

With regards to Artificial Intelligence, how much importance do you think that grammar should have in understanding the user’s input:

1.) Ultimate importance. Nothing else matters.
2.) High importance. Understand the structure, then sort out the context.
3.) Moderate importance. Other concepts should take precedence, then work out who was wearing the pajamas.
4.) Low importance. There are far more necessary things to work out before grammar.
5.) No importance. Whaddaya mean, I talk funny? your stoopid.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Steve, I’m going to swipe your list, and update my “substitutions” database table with it! When I first started with Morti, I had a list of about 800 words in that table. Now, there are nearly 6,000. If I were to keep “up to date” with just the substitutions/spell-check list, I would be spending at least a couple of hours every day. Perhaps I should write a script that gathers up words, and then maps unknown words to the “most likely” correct spelling. Hmmm…