Personality

That wouldn't be enough to convince me.

It's not what you say, it's how you say it.

Maybe they could tweak the Turing Test a little more, so now....not only is it sufficient for a bot to convince us it's a bot, but a useless piece of junk can convince us it's a useless piece of junk, and win the prize.

I'm not convinced that any bots are bots. So there!

Hi
I have not posted here before being new but while on the BBC's website remembered the post about building robots. They had 'build your own' kits there at around $40 some of which are programable that might provide the starting point for something more sophisticated.
The page was at http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/robots/ if its of any help.

cool! thanks!

hi

hi back

ok who wants a cute Bunny

Hmm a bunny bot? Sorta like billy the hamster?

Another thought: I've noticed that chatterbots can be divided roughly in two categories: "experts" and "blaggers". Experts have specific information about lots of things. Blaggers base their answers in recognizing the grammatical structure of the sentence, and replying something generic or random but grammatically correct. For example, if you asked "Do you like apples?" a good expert could answer: "Apples are good to make pies", and a good blagger could say: "I love them!" Of course, good bots use a bit of both strategies. But there isn't still a bot that can do well both functions at the same time. A good combination could be something like: "Yes, I like all sorts of fruit."

I wonder if anybody has any idea on how such a bot could be programmed.

First, you need excellent grammatical analysis. Second, you need a massive cross-indexed dictionary.

Doly, I think the answer to that one would be like plugins in reverse: you have a group called 'fruit' for example, and the bot recognizes the word 'apple' as belonging to that group. Other parts of the program could direct the bot as to more specific reactions, given the context of the word 'apple.'