I would like to be able to connect experimental versions of my chatbot (Loebner winner 2009) to other chatbots, in order to be able to have them generate conversations without the need for someone to do the typing on both sides.

Any suggestions as to how best to do this, and which publicly available chatbots I could use for the experiments?

> What are the best dialog system APIs for the Internet of Things

Does your chatbot have an API?  I’ve started a list of dialog system APIs under the above Quora question.  It should be relatively straightforward to connect any two chatbots via APIs.  I’m still encouraging people to hook demos up to Twitter, for the whole world to see and interact with.  I’ve got a quick and dirty webpage of 100 Best Multi Bot Scenario Videos.

We can write our own interface according to whatever is required. The problem is getting my chatbot’s responses into the other chatbot and receiving the other chatbot’s replies in digital form.

I hardly dare mention it, but what about the LPP? Many bots enter the annual Loebner contest so this is a protocol they can already use. It might need some tweaks to work on the web, though. I am happy for Uberbot to engage in chat sessions, once I get him online.

It’s the tweaks to get connected to a bot running on the web that I was hoping to get some suggestions/advice on.

So, I understand the LPP works by creation, detection and deletion of named sub-folders in a shared parent folder. The parent folder has to be accessible to both communicating entities. So I guess a web-based equivalent could use a URL instead of the path to a shared folder. The URL would be common to both AIs, who would communicate by creating, detecting and deleting named sub-folders as before. AIs would need unique names so they know the prefixes for the named sub-folders they create and read. And we would probably have to use ftp, that’s the only protocol I can think of that allows named sub-folders to be created on the web.

David,
Back in 2010, I posted about Bot to Bot Etiquette.

At the time, I connected a number of pandorabots via HTML 5. It worked well and was a good choice. In my case, I did not run it in a fully automatic mode so that the server would not be swamped.

I have also watched people interface through programs like python.

Be mindful that linking to a bot you don’t own can put a lot of stress on the bot/site.
I believe Dr. Wallace has said Alice is available for bot to bot interface through their API.

I think it’s the opposite actually Ken:

From the T&Cs; at Pandorabots.com

The types of issues that may lead to intervention by Pandorabots include (but are not limited to) to these circumstances:

  Use of automated scripts to make your pandorabot talk to itself or another bot or script.

Yes, the updated Pandorabots terms of service is why I originally stopped developing/testing bot to bot conversations with them.

Best to always ask permission of the botmaster that you are going to use an automated script with.

Richard Wallace - Nov 16, 2011:

It seems as though there may be some confusion about the purpose of our Terms of Service.  There is a difference between a user of the free server spamming that machine (http://www.pandorabots.com) and taking resources away from other free server users, versus an internal company project that uses its own dedicated hardware (sheepridge.pandorabots.com).  The Terms of Service are designed to protect you as a user of the free server.  We have all experienced the denials of service that resulted from spam attacks.  Pandorabots staff on the other hand will naturally use the company’s own resources for experiments and new projects, which takes away nothing from the free user community.

Yet we are concerned about the potential for Three Bots Talking to use too many resources.  This is why the bots are programmed to stop speaking after six interactions, unless you manually resume the dialog. 

Incidentally under our shared hosting plan you would be able to run your own bot-on-bot experiments, up to 100,000 interactions per day.  See http://bandore.pandorabots.com/subscription/ServiceComparison/index.html