Although I’ve had to take a break from the development of my chatbot, Morti, I’ve finally gotten everything on my “short to-do list” checked off, so I need to create another one, and for that I’d like some help. Please feel free to stop in and chat with Morti about whatever comes to mind. I’m more at the point of refining his responses than I am of fixing technical issues (though I’m fairly sure there are still some to work out. I just have to “find” hem). Also, I’d like you to report back here with any comments, questions, suggestions or ideas you may have. Thanks in advance.

Thanks Dave. I’ve tested Morti for a while. Nice idea to use a living room.

Suggestion for the visualisation: would it be possible to re-arrange the right panel?
-first the chat history, oldest on top
-then a visualisation of the room + the people in the room with their latest activity (5 minutes ago, 30 minutes ago)
-then the chat field (somewhat higher to invite people more to send their text), with a ballon from the avatar currenly logged in (suppose the’re are five people in the room, and I am avatar 4, the ballon will be shaped towards my direction.

I am heading over to: http://www.geekcavecreations.com/pChat/ now to see the new improvements.  Thanks Dave for all your good work.

TESTING RESULTS:  Unable to login via Interenet Explorer 7

Line: 63
Char: 1
Error: Object expected
Code: 0
URL: http://www.geekcavecreations.com/pChat/

This post will be updated to reflect the latest status.

UPDATE: This error does not appear under Firefox 3.6.3.

As per your suggestion, 8PLA, I’ve altered the CSS in the page to make all posted text have a solid background color that matches the body’s current background color, which makes the text easier to read when it’s over the background image. Of course, there’s always the checkbox that toggles the background image on and off, as well, but… :D

Anyway, thanks to Erwin and 8PLA for helping me to refine both Morti and pChat, so that visitors have a better experience. If anyone else should care to join in, the more the merrier.

UPDATE:

I just logged in via IE 7, by just trying a second time.

http://www.geekcavecreations.com/pChat/ is definitely a lot of fun.  If anyone goes to check it out, please send me an email so I can try to get over there at the same time.

Dave,
This is really cool!  I liked the ability to move around rooms.  Is Morti aware of his surroundings? Does his subject matter change with each room?

One issue I had was the forum didn’t like “C++”. It returned “C”.

Regarding Morti, he responded each time…even with yourself and 8PLA in the chat. Perhaps he can chat after every two or three comments from others (function of number of folks in the room) unless spoken to directly.

Does Morti have the ability to ‘grow’ in knowledge?

Keep up the great work. This is a very promising concept.

Regards,
Chuck

Thanks for dropping in on Morti, Chuck. He gets a little lonely at times. Perhaps I’ll code things to where he “talks to himself” if there’s nobody talking for an hour or so.

Currently, Morti lives in all rooms at once, though the chat room shows him as being in the last room he responded in. He doesn’t “know” where he is at any given moment, but that’s on the agenda. I don’t think I’ll be scripting him to change topically based on room location, but I do plan on adding some room specific features. The Observatory especially will be receiving a “telescope” command that will show images of whatever feature you direct it to. For example, if you type “telescope horsehead nebula” it will show you an image of the Horsehead Nebula. Eventually, I’ll try to have the telescope command interpret Azimuth/Right Ascension coordinates, as well, but that’s a while off, since that will also require the “telescope” to know where on earth it is, and what time it is. Not to mention that I’ll have to find a site that offers a “whole sky map” in image format. I think that will end up being an entire project in and of itself. :D

As for Morti having the ability to “grow” his knowledge, I’m afraid that for now he’s as limited as most other AIML bots, in that I have to “teach” him. The ability to independently learn is also slated for some time in the future, but I’m not sure when that will be just yet. That, also, is a tall order for my skillset, but I’m confident that the outcome will be a good one.

~update~

I’ve written a small script that collects the contents of both the pattern and template fields in Morti’s AIML database. the script collects each of the fields (in all 46,000+ categories), and breaks them down into individual words, tracking and counting the occurrence of each word unique word, while leaving out any wildcards in the pattern field. The script creates a page that’s several MB in size, as it displays not only general statistics, but also lists each different word, along with how many times that word occurs. The lists are displayed in tables, and sorted by frequency of usage. It’s a rather interesting way to see what goes on within the database, and I’m hoping to use this data as a springboard to Morti’s next level. The script can be seen at http://www.geekcavecreations.com/pChat/stats.php; just be warned that the script takes a while to execute.

While testing changes to Morti’s learning routines, the following conversation occurred:

Dave: Define consequential
Morti: is a low-level programming language.
Dave: wrong answer
Morti: I knew it. I was just testing you.
Dave: define consequential
Morti: is a low-level programming language.
Dave: bad answer
Morti: What would you have said?
Dave: consequential means important; eg something of consequence.
Morti: What else does it mean?
Dave: consequential is something of value.
Morti: And something of value is consequential.
Dave: yes.
Morti: Come on.
Dave: what is consequential
Morti: is a low-level programming language.
Dave: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
Morti: What you said was too complicated for me.
Dave: lol
Morti: I’m glad you find this amusing.

All I can say is Thank God for baseball caps.

Morti: I don’t really have a father. I have a Daddy.
Roy: Who’s your daddy?

I’m confused

I’m still working on his personality, and that’s a portion that’s already on the list. It’s a throwback from ALICE, where she says that she doesn’t really have a father, but a botmaster. Since I’ve changed his personal specs, but not that response, it makes a loop.

Hi Dave, just clicked to visit Morti again. But I had to login again. Why doesn’t Morti simply store my login credentials in a cookies, or a session ID and continue from there.

The more barriers for users, the less it will be used, that’s my statement.

Test more thoroughly later, lagging behind, cathcing up

I’ll look into that, Erwin. Thanks. And I understand the whole “lagging behind/catching up” thing, trust me.

I’ve made some changes to the login process that should correct some of the problems that users have been facing. First off, I’ve lengthened the timeout for the session to 24 hours (I may make this last a week, at most, but no longer), so that you shouldn’t have to log in every time you leave the page. I’ve also instituted a “membership” feature that not only allows you to “reserve” your login name, but also lets you “keep” any changes you’ve made to Morti’s database of responses. Previously, when someone logged out, and later logged back in, they were assigned a new UID, which meant that anything they tried to teach Morti was no longer available to them. By adding a membership feature, your UID is stored in the database, along with your name, which will help prevent things from getting “lost”. People who choose not to sign up for membership are still able to chat with Morti, but they have “Guest_” prepended to their name, and Morti “loses” anything they teach him when they log out.

Feedback and advice on these changes, along with anything else pertaining to Morti, is always given a lot of weight, and is humbly appreciated.