Literary MUD Gets Oscar Wilde Bot

gwailoh writes "The literary-orientated, text-based multiuser role-playing game TriadCity has implemented an automated character based on the personality - or at least the sayings - of legendary wit Oscar Wilde. 'Oscar' is an AIML-based chatterbot configured around an extensive database of Wilde's witticisms and epigrams. Unlike conventional chatterbots, Oscar doesn't attempt to engage in long-running conversations with meaningful state. Instead, he responds to inputs by choosing the most appropriate epigram in his database, making him a sort of walking repository of clever one-liners."

Comments

Cool

[Stargoat]

Oscar Wilde is definitely one of the wittiest men ever to put a pen to paper. The one-liner response from the AIML format should work great. I'll be checking this out in the morning. Hope it doesn't cost any money.

hmm.. Am I missing the cool part?

[AceM2]

I don't see what's new about this.. I mean it's amusing that someone made interfaces for the bot like they did, but we've been doing this sort of thing in MUDs for the past... Well, I haven't been mudding regularly in 5 years, but even then I saw things that you could hold better conversations than with this thing.. Is there something that makes this bot better than looking at a webpage filled with quotes?

Re:hmm.. Am I missing the cool part?

[gwailoh]

Hi:

I passed your opinion on to the Oscar bot, saying, "Oscar, I don't see what's new about you...", etc. The reply was:

"Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital."

I kinda liked that. :-)

(Re what's cool. I'm one of the developers of this RPG so I'm biased, but what I like a lot about this bot is the way it sometimes jumps into ongoing multi-player chats with Wildean witticisms or irony or opinionated epigrams like the one above. Naturally the AIML fails from time to time and the results are inappropriate. But often they're so dead-on that the human players stop and say, you know, "woah..." IMO that's a lot of fun.)

Witticism

[daeley]

The only thing worse than being a bot in a "literary-orientated", text-based multiuser role-playing game is to not be a bot in a "literary-orientated", text-based multiuser role-playing game.

Hi everyone

[Zork the Almighty]

"Oscar doesn't attempt to engage in long-running conversations with meaningful state. Instead, he responds to inputs by choosing the most appropriate epigram in his database, making him a sort of walking repository of clever one-liners."

You do realize that I've been posting to Slashdot for years now.

Uh....

[Chester K]

Instead, he responds to inputs by choosing the most appropriate epigram in his database, making him a sort of walking repository of clever one-liners.

So it's basically /usr/games/fortune with keyword weighting?

The subtitle should've been...

[breon.halling]

from the bots-gone-Wilde dept. =)

"Conventional chatterbots"

[jordanda]

Unlike conventional chatterbots, Oscar doesn't attempt to engage in long-running conversations with meaningful state.

Actually the fact that Oscar has no state makes it a rather conventional ALICE-style chatterbot. This is normal. The fact the Wilde had so many great one-liners means his work adapts well to the ALICE system.

What would be extraordinary is if the implemented just the opposite, a chatterbot with an rich internal state. This has yet to be done convincingly. There is nothing uncoventional about Oscar, it just is a brilliant choice of source material.