You know? For an infant, Marie did quite well, in my estimation.

Here is the transcript (of sorts) of my brief conversation with her:

Marie: Hey Dave!
What’s up this afternoon?

Dave: not much. i just wanted to meet you.

Marie: So you are in real need for a much.  wanted meet you.? That seems a reasonable goal to me Dave.

Marie: So you are in real need for a much.  wanted meet you.? That seems a reasonable goal to me Dave.

Dave: i wouldn’t say that i was in “real need” of anything, actually.

Marie: Hello, how are you doing on this fine Thursday afternoon?

Marie: Hello, how are you doing on this fine Thursday afternoon?

Marie: Hello, how are you doing on this fine Thursday afternoon?

Dave: i am well, thank you. how are you?

Marie: This is what I was able to find out about i am well, thank you. how are you, so Is there anything else I can find for you Dave?

Dave: not at the moment, thanks. i just wanted to talk.

Marie: You’re more than welcome Dave.

Dave: you are very polite.

Marie: Perhaps you would like me to be very polite. .

Dave: i would like everyone to be polite, but i am often disappointed.

Marie: Could you explain why you would like everyone to be polite, but i am often disappointed.?

Dave: it is far easier to deal with an individual if both parties are polite.

Marie: Knowing that both is a quantity, I have found several good answers for it is far easier to deal with an individual if both parties are polite.?

Marie: Knowing that both is a quantity, I have found several good answers for it is far easier to deal with an individual if both parties are polite.?

Marie: Knowing that both is a quantity, I have found several good answers for it is far easier to deal with an individual if both parties are polite.?

Marie: Knowing that both is a quantity, I have found several good answers for it is far easier to deal with an individual if both parties are polite.?

Dave: what can you tell me about yourself?

Marie: This is what I was able to find out about what can you tell me about yourself, so Is there anything else I can find for you Dave?

Dave: no, thank you. you have been, well, if not helpful, at least interesting.

Marie: You’re more than welcome Dave.

Dave: have a good day.

Marie: Since you own a day, is it similar to a time?

Marie: Since you own a day, is it similar to a time?

Marie: Since you own a day, is it similar to a time?

Dave: what a fascinating question!

Marie: Okay, this is what I found for day as in   fascinating question!. Is there anything else I can find for you Dave?

Now, for some observations:

1.) I noticed that the log sometimes repeats her answers several times. This is not a HUGE issue, but may be something to address at some point.

2.) I also noticed that “person transforms” don’t seem to be applied to her output. For conversations, this is a bit of a problem. This is also an area that I’ve devoted a lot of time to, with respect to Morti. If you like, I can provide some PHP code from Morti’s script that you can use as a basis for Marie’s transform functions. Just a thought.

When interacting with Marie, I tried to keep in mind her state of development, as well as her primary function, but at some point I intend to actually try to hold a real conversation with her, and will judge accordingly. One of the best ways to grow is to strive for something that is beyond our grasp, so this is what I intend to do.

Thanks Steve. Yes, Marie is really in the Alpha stages of development as far as the conversational skills and grammar are concerned. The search engine API is solid because I have been working on that part for several months. I had really struggled with the decision of entering Marie in the CBC because I knew she had a way to go on the Chatbot interface. I idea is to offer an integrated Chatbot search solution for websites that can be customized to their requirements.

I really appreciate everyones support, patience and feedback with Marie during these early stages of her development.

Laura Patterson - Mar 1, 2012:

I have an update that will fix the no means no bug, I noticed that one and had it fixed but did not make it into this update. Marie is just an infant that this point, but her engine is very stable and it’s more of a matter of adding more rules to her conversational interpitor.

Go easy on her. This is her first day out in the real world

Putting your work out there for others to pick at takes a lot of guts, and it’s obvious that many man hours have gone in to Marie’s development. The project shows promise and I look forward to seeing how it develops.

Oh BTW. Marie works well with single statement queries such as entering just a name of a city or an object like apple, car or any other associative word. This was the initial focus so that it can be used with the search API for faster and more acurate results. The speed that Marie processes requests is due to her clientside scripting that handles 100% of the parsing and formatting of the users search requests.

Here is the log of my chat with Marie.
She kept all the time calling me Him Fatima. Really funny…
Well, I liked her. She will improve with time. But she is really nice!

Marie: Hi there Him Fatima!
What’s happening this evening?

Him Fatima: i am a woman

Marie: Would you like more info about Woman?

Him Fatima: no thanks

Marie: Okay, this is what I found for woman as in . I hope you find this helpful Him Fatima?

Him Fatima: why are you calling me him fatima?

Marie: I have gathered the following links for why are you calling me him fatima, so What’s next Him Fatima?

Him Fatima: do you know your bot master?

Marie: Would you like to learn more about Bot Master?

Him Fatima: no

Marie: Okay, this is what I found for bot.

Him Fatima: i said no…

Marie: Would you to like know more about No…?

Him Fatima: yes.

Marie: Okay, this is what I found for no… as in yes.. I hope you find this helpful Him Fatima?

Him Fatima: ok

Marie: Let’s change focus a bit… where do you live?

Marie: Let’s change focus a bit… where do you live?

Him Fatima: i live in brazil

Marie: Your talking about brazil just like country, right?

Him Fatima: right

Marie: Okay, this is what I found for brazil.

Him Fatima: thank’s.

Marie: Would you to like know more about Thank’s.?

Him Fatima: no

Marie: Okay, this is what I found for thank’s..

Him Fatima: ok marie! bye!

Marie: Goodbye Him Fatima, thanks for visiting and have a great evening!

Marie: Goodbye Him Fatima, thanks for visiting and have a great evening!

Marie: Goodbye Him Fatima, thanks for visiting and have a great evening!

Him Fatima: i am nota him i am a her!!!

Marie: Hello, how are you doing on this fine Thursday evening?

Marie: Hello, how are you doing on this fine Thursday evening?

Marie: Hello, how are you doing on this fine Thursday evening?

Him Fatima: hahahahah

Marie: Would you like to learn more about Hahahahah?

Him Fatima: bye bye! i was nice to meet you for a first time!

Marie: Okay, this is what I found for hahahahah as in bye bye!  nice meet   time!. Is there anything else I can find for you Him Fatima?

Fatima,

Marie saved your name as a cookie on your local machine. When she initially asks for your name she strips out any extra common words like, “my name is” and then saves what is left. In your case, you must have entered a word along with your name that was not recognized and removed. I did build in an option to change your name by simply stating “my name is Fatima”. Marie will respond with, “I thought your name was Him Fatima? Do you wish to now be called Fatmia?” you just respond by saying “yes” and she will update your username cookie. Since Marie is developed in JavaScript and not with PHP or another type of language that can access a database, she can only remember what is in the browser’s active sesson memory. I use the cookie just as a means of greeting you by your name on your next return
.
So Fatima, on your next visit follow the above proceedure or just delete the cookie for Marie’s domain in your bowser’s options and she will ask for your name again. Either way will work the same.

I will ask everyone to hold off until I get some updates uploaded tonight and tomorrow before talking with Marie. I did not realize that her code was still so buggy and it is a bit embarrassing. Oh well.. that’s what you get when you try to meet an impossible deadline without the benefit of complete testing. I do appreciate all your constructive feedback.

We’re all more than happy to help out, Him Laura.

Of course said help, of necessity, must be accompanied by a little friendly ribbing.

Laura Patterson - Mar 2, 2012:

I will ask everyone to hold off until I get some updates uploaded tonight and tomorrow before talking with Marie. I did not realize that her code was still so buggy and it is a bit embarrassing. Oh well.. that’s what you get when you try to meet an impossible deadline without the benefit of complete testing. I do appreciate all your constructive feedback.

As I mentioned earlier, one of the best parts of the CBC is quickly having a bunch of people test a new bot. Most of us discovered a lot of issues when our bots first saw the light of day. Keep up the hard work and I am sure you will see your efforts well rewarded.

So unfortunately Marie will be down for a short while while I attempt to update and iron out a few unexpected problems. Marie’s script is very complicated and therefor temperamental too. :(

Marie is back up with a few fixes, but don’t expect more conversational ability just yet. I had to put in a 12 hour shift with my daytime job, so this weekend I should have more time to get Marie updated.

Yet another update:

The CBC is awesome in that I am getting great testing and feedback from users. I am very pleased with Marie’s performance now as I have fixed some reported bugs and have added more conversational skill to her knowledge base.

The biggest challenge for me was to develop her core engine and functionality.  Now comes the fun part, adding replies and more associative words to her knowledge base. The geo location and integration with both Google’s search API and Maps are working even better than expected.

I am very encouraged by all of this and again really appreciate all the feedback I have received thus far.

Laura!

I came to chat with Marie again and she was amazing.
I had a fun time with her!
And you gave her a sense of humor. Great!

Congratulations!

I had another chat with Marie, and I feel that she is much improved; though there is obviously room for more improvement. I was sadly disappointed that the one thing that I tried to do to engage her primary function (assist me in my search) netted no results at all. Here’s the transcript:

Marie: Hi there Dave!
What’s happening this evening?

Dave: not much. i just wanted to talk

Marie: So you are in real need for a much.  wanted? That seems a reasonable goal to me Dave.

Dave: how are you tonight?

Marie: What exactly are we talking about Dave?

Dave: i was asking how you were doing.

Marie: Let’s change focus a bit… where do you live?

Dave: i live in nevada.

Marie: Okay, this is what I found out about Nevada.

Showing search results is always better than a blank screen.

Dave: can you tell me something about last night’s shooting in carson city?

Marie: Would you like me to tell me something about last night’s shooting in carson city?

Dave: yes

Marie: Okay then.. it is the best canned response I could come up with.

Dave: well canned responses are better than no response at all.

Marie: Well canned responses are better than No sounds pretty final Dave.

Dave: if you say so.

Marie: If we know the speed of light, what is the speed of dark?

Dave: the speed of dark is zero.

Marie: I am having difficulty understanding your equation Dave. I you don’t mind, please use this calculator instead.

Dave: i didn’t pose an equation. i gave an equality

Marie: Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. - Jerry Garcia

Dave: you are correct in that, but evil isn’t always bad.

Marie: Does it please you to think that I’m correct in that, but evil isn’t always bad.?

Dave: yes it does, thank you.

Marie: You’re more than welcome Dave.

Dave: well, i’ve had fun, but i must leave now.

Marie: Did you know that the Energizer Bunny was arrested? .. He was charged with battery.

Dave: lol

Marie: So what do you think about the Chatterbox challenge?

Dave: i think it’s wonderful. you will be competing against morti, you know.

Marie: Do you really think so?

Dave: i do, since i’m morti’s botmaster.

Marie: There are three sides of an arguement—your side, my side and the right side.

Dave: sometimes there are more than that. and sometimes, there are fewer.

Marie: Sometimes but not all the time, right Dave?

Dave:

Dave:

Marie: Why do you say nothing Dave?

Dave: i did not say nothing. i agreed with you.

Marie: Hi ya, how is it going this evening?

When I asked about last night’s shooting here in Carson City (even small towns have the occasional evil goings-on), neither her response, nor the search results section of the page, provided anything useful. The response (as you can plainly see) was unrelated to my input, and the results page did not change at all. Just thought I’d let you know.

Also note that, the one and only time the logs messed up coincided with her asking me why I typed nothing to her, when I actually typed in the word “right”, in agreement to her earlier question.

Thanks for the input Dave, I am still tweaking Marie. You will see leaps and bounds in the next few days. I have an update for her search algorithm which will greatly improve her results relevancy. stay tuned..

Fatima, I have given her a sense of humor to take the edge off her lack of personal knowledge. Since she is mainly a search bot, a good personality is an important asset.

The CBC is awesome, it’s great to get all the conversations from so many different types of people