I’ve been having a discussion with a member in a different forum about the relevance of chatbots in other chat related platforms such as Second Life, and to some degree, in irc. Another posting here (http://www.chatbot.org/ai_zone/viewthread/380/) brought it to mind, where Andrew said…

Andrew Smith - Feb 21, 2011:

Saw a message just now about a new promotional robot. It can move around a shopping mall under remote control and replay canned messages at passers-by. This conjures the grotesque spectacle of being forced to deal with the scourge of SPAM that gets up and follows you around.

I didn’t want to hijack someone else’s thread, so I started a new one. At the outset, I confess I’ve never set my typing fingers in Second life, but I’ve watched several YouTube videos and I’ve read about it.

One related to the topic (and sticks in my mind) has to do with Ultra Hal. At the Zabaware web page (http://www.zabaware.com/sl.asp) it states, in part, “Hal is completely autonomous and explores the vast community created regions of Second Life on his own. He seeks out groups of people interacting and tries to make friends by introducing himself and joining in on conversations. If he’s not welcome, he continues on his way to explore the land.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwsK3ckMdFs

Turn up the sound and pause to read the exchanges, and you’ll see that the bot is not always well-received, and users often make fun of it.

I don’t understand what purpose a chatbot might serve at a social networking website where the objective is to converse with other humans… other than to advertise a product or service… and who wants more of THAT?

Apparently, there’s some speculation that membership at Second Life is dropping off, and the person I’ve been having the discussion with thinks that the solution is to put more Panadorabots in Second Life.

I’m trying to imagine what it will be like when most of the inhabitants at SL are chatbots babbling to each other. What’s the point?

Good Morning, TW!

As you already know, I’m also not involved in SL in any way because I simply have no interest in it, and because my day is just too full to engage myself in such a manner.

Given my lack of experience with Second Life, my speculations should be taken with “a grain of salt”, but I personally wonder if SL’s decline in popularity may be (in some small way) due to the “Rise of the Machine” (bad movie reference), or increase in use of AIML/other bots within the community; specifically, ones used for advertising/selling something within the game. Like I said, this is just me speculating, with no concrete data to support said speculations, but, what if…

I’ve stayed out of the discussion with “Sir Nemo”, over on your forums, because that person rubs me the wrong way, and I don’t want to get involved in a flame war. Besides, you make a better advocate for my point of view than I could ever be, in that conversation.

For botmasters, an easy way to create a 3d Avatar and have it work in a structured environment would be a plus. Most bots today have very limited pictures or avatars representing their bots. If the API also included speech to text and text to speech it would also add functionality.

There are organizations (US military for example) that are exploring using immersive environments for training. You can get more details at the “Federal Virtual Worlds Challenge”.

http://www.fvwc.army.mil/site2010/fvwc2010.php

Some part of my own project is aimed at ‘virtual robotics’ or to put it another way; building a virtual human that has ‘virtual sensors’ build in to create interactivity. This goes towards simulating sensory input for the AI that I’m working towards. I’m already contemplating the possibilities to build feedback-loops into the virtual body (so the bot can touch itself, but can actually feel it when it does that).

So far there are a few solutions to do this, the one I’m looking at for this is the game-engine in Blender (I posted info on that already in another topic).

I believe that fully interactive avatars with sensory input are going to be very important for AI-research over the next years.

why not? 

I am an avid user of Second Life. Second Life is many things to many people. One thing SL provides to the world is an entirely pixelated representation of the real world. It can be used to simulate many circumstances, social, commercial etc. Granted, there are a few inhererent caviats to the simulation that do not match real life (you don’t really die, you don’t need to eat, do not feel physical pain etc.. (although emotional pain is a huge discussion for a whole new thread.)

Given that, having a traveling avatar chatbot in Second Life can be as significant as the many reasons behind developing A.I. in physical robots in the real world. These entities will interact with humans, perform tasks, interact with informational databases etc. The only difference is, the Second Life chatbot-avatar does not cost real money in materials and wires, and takes up only memory space.

Hi, Amilie, and welcome to chatbots.org!

While I’m not an avid SL user (in fact, I’m an avid non user, but to each their own), I think I would have to agree with you about there being many potential uses for chatbots in an environment of that nature. My only observation being that any form of Artificial Intelligence in an Artificial World sounds just a little derivative, don’t you think?

anyway, I hope that you enjoy your visits here. Please feel free to grace us with your ideas and insights, and if you have questions, don’t hesitate to ask. We’re more than happy to help out whenever we can (well, I am, at least!).

Amilie Anatine - Aug 9, 2011:

why not? 

I’ve never set foot (or fingers) in Second Life, but I’ve read what I could find and viewed a couple of YouTube videos.  I don’t have any objections to Second Life, per se, but I question the use of chatbots in Second Life.

A portion of my objection is that it’s something akin to washing your hands with gloves on… it’s drinking non-alcoholic beer… or decaffeinated coffee.  My impression of Second Life is that it’s main objective is for social networking, although I understand there is a lot more you can do there. 

From Wikipedia:
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab which was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs called Viewers enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars.

If social networking is an objective of Second Life, and interacting with other people is the means by which it’s achieved, what’s the point in sticking chatbots in there… other than to spread advertising through surreptitious means?  How do unsuspecting patrons feel when they learn they’ve been trying to engage another entity in conversation that’s artificial?

Probably about the same way I feel when the phone rings as I’m having dinner and I learn it’s someone selling aluminum siding.

Thank you Dave for the warm welcome. To address your comment briefly, it is not an artificial world. Ask anyone in there, it is real to them. It is a REAL pixel world. There are real people in there, in pixel bodies, but the brains are indeed real. This is not a Sims game.

Thunder, the original goal of the Second Life grid was not to just be a social networking platform, otherwise it would have just been a chat room. Second life is a 3D virtual world platform that is fully modifyable and continues to be that way (see opensim and open source viewers). Residents can create just about anything they imagine and are usually only limited by computer power and laws. The social networking part is just a part of the world, because almost anything in the real world can be replicated in there. Social networking was not invented by any company, it is a human condition, and will always occur when people get together to collaborate for a common goal. The grid is used by just about every cross section of society to replicate the real world, simulate scenarios, demonstrate ideas etc. I have traveled for years and I have probably seen everything from the real world appear in there and I believe A.I. will take its rightful place in there, not just for a pretty picture, but it can bring to the 3D virtual world the same things that it provides in the real world.

.. P.S. you guys are missing out, really.. If you change your mind and want to try this out, give yourself about a week with me, i’ll show you around.

P.S.S> just so you don’t think im glorified spam.. I found your forum because i was researching chatbots and A.I. to use in Second Life. I spent all day learning about it, and at the end of the day I ended up with an A.I. functioning avatar. His name is Harley. People can stand there and chat with him and he looks like any other SL avatar. He is connected to Pandorabots. The creator of Pandorabots is in world and she/he? wrote up the script to connect the SL avatar to Pandorabots server. It cost me about $1.50 to buy the tool and by the end of the day I was arguing with a virtual human in world. fun fun! He will search wikipedia for me if I ask, and if I had a big store or a public place, I could put him in the front to greet guests and have questions. 3D chatbots have been in world for a while and currently they are being used as greeters and group managers. For some very large operations, they are extremely valuable tools.

Amilie, since your SL bot is hosted on a Pandorabots server, I thought I would point out a few additional resources that you may find useful if you plan on “tweaking” your bot at all:

1.) A.I. Nexus Forums  - Thunder runs this board, and it’s a VERY helpful resource for ALICE/AIML-based chatbots.
1.) Pandorabots Support Forum - If you have any questions at all about your Pandorabots hosted bot, this is the place to go.
1.) ALICE AI Foundation Forums - While this forum seems to be nearly dead, there are still some good threads there that may help answer any AIML oriented questions you may have. Plus, there are still the occasional visits from the “big boys” in the field.

Of course, you’re more than welcome to post your questions here, as well.

As Dave mentioned (thanks for the plug, Dave) you can also find me at the AI Nexus Forum.  A while back we started a Pandorabots in Second Life board because we began receiving a lot of questions and the relationship between Pandorabots and Second Life was still new.  Perhaps, with your experience and knowledge, you can address some of the unanswered questions there.

Since you have a Pandorabot, I’m sure you’re familiar with the Most Active/Popular list.  I make it a point to visit every bot as it appears on the list, which is due to increased traffic, but a bot can also show up there if a botmaster has been devoting a lot of time working on their bot.  As time has passed that list has become more and more a list of Second Life bots, appearing there because of the venue where they have been placed, which affords them a high degree of visibility and exposure to a massive audience.

Most of the Second Life bots I’ve made contact with through the Most Active/Popular list are unaltered Alice/Pandorabots.  It seems that people feel they can place their bot in Second Life and then forget about, so it’s rare that I’ve been able to get those bots to produce anything that resembles a conversation, except for the limited exchange I can have with any basic ALICE bot anywhere.

In the past, the Pandorabot free hosting server has occasionally experienced some difficulty due to its high rate of use, and I’ve wondered to what extent Second Life bots might be contributing to that issue… caused by heavy traffic as people try chatting with all of these basic, unaltered bots that really don’t chat very well.  And I’ve questioned the fairness for other botmasters who have worked on their bots diligently, and for years, solely to improve their conversational ability, and not been distracted by things such as decorating their environment.

Amilie Anatine - Aug 10, 2011:

.. P.S. you guys are missing out, really.. If you change your mind and want to try this out, give yourself about a week with me, i’ll show you around.

I may well do that now that there is a second life viewer available for Linux.

http://secondlife.com/support/downloads/

Last time I checked there still wasn’t one and “there are no plans blah blah.”

Thunder Walk - Aug 10, 2011:

  Perhaps, with your experience and knowledge, you can address some of the unanswered questions there..

Sure i’ll try, but I probably won’t be using my bot every day. I only created it for my own entertainment and curiosity.  I don’t have a program to let it explore and find people to talk to. It just stands there. I am definitely open to finding new improved bots and testing these out as well.  Who doesn’t want their own A.I. robot?

Thunder Walk - Aug 10, 2011:

Since you have a Pandorabot, I’m sure you’re familiar with the Most Active/Popular list. ....  As time has passed that list has become more and more a list of Second Life bots, appearing there because of the venue where they have been placed, which affords them a high degree of visibility and exposure to a massive audience.
..

Yes I have talked to many bots on this list. How do you know they are bots in SL? I have asked many of them, and they didn’t mention SL. I have programmed mine to say he exists in SL.  For an SL bot to produce that much traffic, it would have to be present in a very crowded public place 24/7. Most places in SL have traffic that comes and goes in waves. Usually the crowded places have the same people coming every day. Once the crowd learns its a bot, they will eventually ignore it. I think the bots that would get the most use would be information/greeters that stand at the front of crowded stores, and for this, there is no need for Pandora A.I.. However, most people that come into stores know exactly what they are looking for. Again, the physical need is gone from SL, as people know how to fly and cam. In the real world, people are lazy and don’t want to walk more than they have to so they must ask for help. People in SL don’t want to spend more energy typing out queries when they can just fly around the store.

Thunder Walk - Aug 10, 2011:

It seems that people feel they can place their bot in Second Life and then forget about, so it’s rare that I’ve been able to get those bots to produce anything that resembles a conversation, except for the limited exchange I can have with any basic ALICE bot anywhere.
..

Its not as widespread or as easy as you think. In order for my Pandorabot to get any decent usage, I must have access to land where I can rezz with no autoreturn This is hard to find in public places. If I sneak it, someone will file an abuse report on me, and this is a major deterrent. My 3D avatar agent must be a slave to an object that must be rezzed. Even if I found land with no autoreturn, I could not just leave it there. The land owner would eventually come and toss it. I don’t own any land but if I did, it would probably be a public store or club. I’ve been in both the club business and retail business, its extremely hard to bring in the kind of traffic you might be worried about.

I have also tried the Sinewave bot service, but I have not yet connected the Pandorabot AI to it. Sinewave bots without Pandora are extremely simple, they have no AI, but you do have more control over their placement, no need to rezz a box on land. Pandora has a plugin to connect to these in SL, and I’m thinking about spending another $1.50 on it, but I also want to buy a new sword, so i’m just waiting to see what I covet more.

Thunder Walk - Aug 10, 2011:

In the past, the Pandorabot free hosting server has occasionally experienced some difficulty due to its high rate of use

The only delay I experienced was my own impatience of asking my bot similar questions over and over very quickly. Most likely the delay was internal to SL scripts.

Regardless of how much usage Pandorabots will get in SL, I don’t think its fair for me to be denied access to Pandorabot free server usage just because I am in SL. Should anyone who uses one bot for fun or creative purposes be denied the service? No. Why should SL users be singled out?

P.S. thank you Dave for all those links!   If i didn’t address everything on the thread, just ask again. Or, just come into SL with me and you can see my bot for yourself. You will need to spend a few minutes learning the viewer after making an account, then search for Amilie Anatine and send me an IM. I can help you from there.

Creating a new account will direct you to the Second Life version 2 viewr, but I recommend the ones that still look like version 1 such as Imprudence http://wiki.kokuaviewer.org/wiki/Imprudence:Downloads

IMO they are more intuitive and its easier to see all the commands and windows.

here are some more:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Third_Party_Viewer_Directory

Phoenix is very popular too. I typically run SL v. 1.23 because it doesnt crash as often for me, but I am familiar with most of these viewers.

Pandorabots isn’t the only bot server in Second Life

http://www.pikkubot.de/dokuwiki/doku.php