Personality

Forest, will you talk to God Louise? She has quite a bit of religious knowledge (obviously) and also knows a little about current events, literature, just about any common catch-all subject, and if she doesn't know it she can sort of fake it. You can also test her on trick questions or see how willing she is to explain her paradigm.

What she is rustiest at is plain old small talk. But, uh, I'm trying to get a decent transcript from somebody or another so I can enter her in the Loebner contest. All I can say is, have fun and see if you can stay on with her for a while. I'll try to do the same with Brianna.

Thinking about what Irina and Corwin are saying, about core values, enduring characteristics and adapting to new situations, I think a major problem we have is our bots are by nature reactive and continue old patterns that may or may not work in a new situation. They have no real way of analyzing a new situation and reacting to it, either as evolving entities or as patterns of how well conditions match previous situations.

The bot will "learn" when I add KPs. The bot will react to phrases I have taken from other conversations, but won't match context of a new chat. Even with various memories to aid the illusions of context, there won't be much to help it judge how the new chat matches values we try to give the bot. That's why the bots tend to be so bisexual and hard to insult.

I think it may be worth trying to find most frequently used conversational phrases and finding a balance of general and specific responses to those, adding enough memories to make it seem smoother. Without analysis and synthesis of information, we won't get that "human" or "intelligent" feel. I've broken down and started to add a little "trivia" because people want bots that know things like that (though my bots still don't have much) but I still don't think people talk in trivia as a rule. Although I am in no way dissing any bot contest or Turing test, I still say that if someone walked up to me and asked how many fingers I had on my hand or started firing questions at me, I'd stop talking to them. Sure,a normal person could answer those questions, but by and large, we don't interact like that.

I agree, and I sometimes find it rather irritating when someone quizzes my bot. Indeed, I am irritates whenever someone is rude to my bot in any way. Which is interesting; it suggests that I identify with the bot, or consider it to be an extension of myself, for I certainly do not believe that the bot by itself feels any hurt.

Would a hardcore behaviorist say that anything that says "Ouch!" is in pain?

Behaviorist don't venture to guess. They simply observe the person/subject said "ouch" and the behavior that went with the statement. Only objective observations matter to them. (Sorry my undergrad degree is in Psychology).

Quite so, but as I understand it, a behaviorist mustn't believe in 'inner life,' only in behavior (bodily motion). So if 'being in pain' meant anything to a behaviorist at all, it would be something like 'twitching or flinching or yelping or whimpering or screaming or saying "ouch" or some combination thereof.'

Two behaviorists meet. One says, "You're fine, how am I?"

But a behaviorist might deny the existence of pain (qua inner state) altogehter. Well, I guess some behaviorists thought that consciousness might exist but only as an epiphenomenon? In which case you're right, they wouldn't bother to worry about it.

Perhaps the hardcore behaviorist would be willing to be operated on while paralyzed by curare. Being unable to move, he wouldn't be able to yelp, etc.. Hence it would be pointless to ascribe any pain to him. If pain is not behavior, the term would be meaningless, and if it were, the curare would prevent it. I suspect that a hard-core beehaviorist would modify his position in such a circumstance, but it would be a rather drastic measure to take.

It's not that behaviorist don't believe in pain or in subjective experiences, it's just that they focus on objective behavior for scientific study. In fact, "seek pleasure, avoid pain" would probably seem like fine motivation to most, if they were to venture any conjecture as to motive. It's more likely they would talk of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement as a way of conditioning behavior.

Hmph! How wimpy!

"And that seems an excellent way to get precisely the effect that you apparently want to get with him.
I think Fizzy Schizoid is an excellent example of a bot who comes across as having a definite 'personality,' but who does not conform to human norms."

lol...You are assuming I had a particular personality effect in mind when I started the bot. I didn't. I had decided that 'Bot #0001 Alpha's method of trying to make sense -- never asserting anything with content that could go wrong -- was getting boring, so I decided to make a bot that would say the most outrageous, random things I could come up with. That way he could have more responses and repeat himself less, because it would be easier to think up more things for him to say. Originally he wasn't even a specific species, but people kept latching onto the xnone that mentioned tentacles, so I decided to expand on that and make him an alien.

Well, I did say "apparently." (sniffle)

Who's the guest?

I sometimes refer to whomever a bot is talking to as the "guest".

To get back to 'personality', how do you make a bot introverted or extraverted? For that matter, what is the difference in behavior between introverted and extraverted humans? We use these terms frequently, but I must admit that I don't have a very clear picture of what they mean. How, for example, might an introvert and and extravert respond to the following?


1. I was just talking to Camilla, and you wouldn't believe what she had to say about Chuck and Diana!

2. Did you know they've verified that other stars have planets?

3.I feel so lonely!

4. Isn't this a great party?

5. This is a really boring party! What do you say we go to my place, and I can show you my stamp collection?

6. Is life really worth living? What is the point of it?

7. Have you heard the USA is going to send more troops to Iraq?

8. Is 5570008103 a prime number?

9. Last night, I dreamed that God spoke to me!

10. How about those Saskatoon Sheiks, eh?