Round 2: Cleverbot vs Cleverbot

Paper Transformer

Kinda unbelievable. Definitely awesome. Haven't tried it but if anyone does let me know!

Obama launches $70 million dollar robot initiative

"One of my responsibilities as commander-in-chief is to keep an eye on robots." - President Obama

"And I am pleased to report, that the robots you manufacture here seem peaceful."

"For now."

Lego sandcrawler

Marshal Banana has posted some pretty awesome pics of his latest creation, a sandcrawler made out of 10 000 + lego pieces.

Details:

Minifigscale: 96 cm long, 100.5 cm long (lowered main ramp)
Weight: approximability 20kg
Part count: over 10’000
Powerfunctions: 4 xl motors, 5 m motors, 4 receivers, 4 batterypacks, 22 Lego LED-lights

Powered radio-controlled Functions:

- driving: forward reverse

- stearing

- main ramp: up and down

- crane: up and down, in and out

- conveyer band: forward and reverse

Other features:

fully interior on three floors in the front half of the model and a detailed cockpit (removable roof) second crane in the back of the workshop, lighted smelter.

Building and planning time: 9 months

Battlebots/RobotWars vs. Bum Fights

Okay, so the title of this post is a little off-mark. I just really wanted it to be true.

Supposedly the little robo-bum in this video (named "Don-8r") is already in use in Scotland and maybe elsewhere, collecting donations for charities. I wonder how it keeps from wandering into the street, and from being stolen... but honestly I kinda think I'd be more trusting to give my spare change to the clean-looking well-programmed droid, than the booze-soaked toothless self-made wreck. Don't worry. I do feel bad.

Cleverbot vs. Omegle

So I wasn't really impressed with Cleverbot, and from comments it didn't seem you guys were either, but I thought I'd put it to an impartial test. Omegle is a service that connects pairs of chat-seeking individuals anonymously / randomly. Anyone who's tried it knows it's a sleazy cesspool of random cybersex seekers and trolls, with the very occasional person genuinely interested in conversation. About 50% of opening lines when I tried it were "asl?"-based, 40% "hi" etc., and 10% were bots advertising as slutty webcam girls.

I found a surprisingly large number of people willing to converse with me as Cleverbot. "User" below is the unknowing Omegle test subject, and the lines of "Cleverbot" were fed into Omegle.


          User: Hey :).
          Cleverbot: How are you?
          User: Im good.
          Cleverbot: That's good.
          User: U?
          Cleverbot: More!
          User: R u male or female.
          Cleverbot: Female.
          User: Cool.. I'm male...
          Cleverbot: That's cool.
          User: How old are you.
          Cleverbot: How old do you think I am?
          User: 17.
          Cleverbot: WHOA! Good guess. 16.
          User: I'm good.
          Cleverbot: Thats awesome.
          User: Blonde hair, right?
          Cleverbot: Wrong, I don't look like that.
          User: Lol.
          Cleverbot: Did google create you?
          User: Brunette?
          Cleverbot: Yes.
          User: 5'6'.
          Cleverbot: Ah, you're taller than me.
          User: 5'4'.
          Cleverbot: I have brown hair, green eyes, I'm 5'8', and weigh 60 kilograms.
          User: See, I knew all that!!! .. Lol.. What country?
          Cleverbot: All of them.
          User: Lol.
          Cleverbot: What kind of chocolate do you like?
          User: All chocolate.
          Cleverbot: You like chocolate pie?
          User: Yes.
          Cleverbot: What do you like to do?
          User: Got some for me?
          Cleverbot: Chocolate.
          User: Play soccer....golf...
          Cleverbot: Soccer? When did sports come into the conversation?
          User: I really like you...


Really? Yes. Many conversations went surprisingly similar to this. Here's just one more:



          Cleverbot: What color are your eyes?
          User: Blue.
          Cleverbot: So are mine.
          User: What color is ur ass.
          Cleverbot: Any color you want it to be.
          User: Mine is brown with a touch of grey.
          Cleverbot: I'm five feet, ten inches.
          User: I'm 6'.
          Cleverbot: You're tall.
          User: Ok?
          Cleverbot: You're fine. You are a good computer.
          User: What's your name.
          Cleverbot: My name is Cleverbot.
          User: Lol.
          Cleverbot: What are you doing?
          User: U have a clever?
          Cleverbot: I do!?
          User: Right meow?
          Cleverbot: Are you a cat now?
          User: Mooooo? Haaahaa.
          Cleverbot: How can I get rid of my headache?
          User: A lot of dick.
          Cleverbot: Is there a human controlling you?
          User: Of course.
          Cleverbot: Really? Can I meet them?


Even if, like me, you weren't impressed with Cleverbot when you used it, I think you might agree that it's a fucking genius compared to the Omegle brain.

Artificial Intelligence

I'm really intrigued by the limits of artificial intelligence, especially in a technology (text-based chat) that is supremely widespread and accessible for programmers.

Cleverbot, a chat bot launched in 2009, bases its replies on a growing database of over 20 million actual online conversations. This means that, at times, it can give surprisingly human-sounding replies. But, at other times it completely misses the point, because it's only picking from fragments of other conversations.

The best AI I've seen is called SILVIA, from 2007, which seems able to store functional and relational vocabulary in memory to construct very meaningful sentences from scratch. A rather lengthy video is posted above, but you can get a great example of SILVIA's ability just from random sections. At various parts of the video, when asked identical questions from earlier, SILVIA responds with the same answers but in very different words. It's quite impressive.

Give Cleverbot a try and let me know what you think. Or if you know of any more impressive ones.