Peter Answers and Igod: Artificial Intelligence Logs In to the Spirit World

April 15th, 2007 · 34 Comments

Chat bots: Artificial Intelligence Links Us to The Big Guy (and other interesting personalities)

First it was Peteranswers.com, then it was Ask Jud, now my students are hooked on igod. I’m all for 21st century skills, shrinking the world with electronic dialog, better opportunities for learning and all that—but this is getting ridiculous.

I was in the computer lab with my students the other day when I noticed a couple of them were a little off task. At that point, I did what any teacher worth his salt does in these situations. I snuck up behind them. You’d be surprised how quickly a kid can quit a web site and erase the history these days.

What I saw fascinated me.

Having just been through the whole Peter Answers fiasco a few weeks earlier, I was somewhat prepared. But the longer I stood there, the more I realized this was no prank. There was no trick. These students were actually having a real, live chat with somebody (or something) online.

And who did this other person say that he was?

God.

Igod the Chat bot: not your father’s er. . . older sister’s online chat

My first reaction was surprise. Most of these sites (chat sites) are blocked by our filters. But then this wasn’t your typical chat-room. At the top a header read:

“igod . . .repenting made easy”

Beneath that:

“You are now chatting with God”

As I watched, I soon realized these kids weren’t chatting with a real person. While clever, many of igod’s responses were a little off. This was obviously a computer program—a type of on-line artificial intelligence.

But, like I said, it was very clever. Here is an example of a chat I had with igod recently:

Me: Hello?
God: Hello my child. What is your name?
Me: Chris Wondra
God: OK, I will call you Chris Wondra
Me: Don’t you know me?
God: What’s my reason to know you?
Me: You’re God.
God: Yup. That’s me alright.
Me: Well, I thought you knew me.
God: Well that’s okay. You are Chris Wondra, seeker.
Me: What am I seeking?
God: Online chat with me!!
Me: I guess you got me there. Do you chat online often?
God: No I don’t think I have any you there. But I do have a lot of friends on the web. I am a talking robot, after all, so of course I could talk online often, if I needed to.
Me: You’re kind of funny.
God: Thanks, you make me laugh too.

Now, as a language arts teacher, I thought this was wicked cool. But I began to wonder if this was the only Artificial Intelligence chat program out there. I mean, what were the chances that my students, while obviously brilliant in their own right, had stumbled upon the only artificial intelligence on the web?

So I did a little hunting around. Turns out there are all kinds. They’re called “chat bots” or “chatter bots” and they have a long history dating back to 1966 when the first chat bot, ELIZA, was created by Joseph Weizenbaum. Weizenbaum programmed ELIZA to “parody the responses of a non-directional psychotherapist in an initial psychiatric interview.”

The Early Days: Baby bots.

For example, ELIZA’s response to a statement like, “My dad is a jerk” might be, “Who else in your family isn’t very nice?” ELIZA might reply to “Who is your favorite baseball player?” with, “What about your own favorite baseball player?”

Since her creation, however, ELIZA has left a legacy–breaking ground for a number of early role-playing computer games and interactive fiction.

Still, these early versions are simple in that they don’t use a database, which means they have no “knowledge” of their own. They simply take information from the user and spit it back out again. Of course this doesn’t stop them from being entertaining enough to chew up hours of time–leaving you scratching your head at 2:00 am, wondering how you missed dinner.

As databases matured, so did chat bots. Programs emerged that acted as computer support, technical troubleshooters, or even company representatives.

Artificial “Intelligence”: Chatbots get cheeky

Today, however, programs like Jabberwacky, created by British programmer, Rollo Carpenter, actually learn by collecting and adding to huge databases of contextually appropriate responses. Chatting with Jabberwacky is unique because you not only type in your text, but you also choose from a list of 72 possible emotions ranging from “happy” to “argumentative” to “worried”. Jabberwacky–an animated, balding, middle aged man–will then respond appropriately.

Yes, you read that right. Computer programs are now learning.

Other programs like Chomsky draw from a database of information at Wikipedia. You can even teach Chomsky to remember things by giving him answers to questions like, “Do you know Chris Wondra?” He’ll put your answer into his “short term” memory so you can amaze your friends, but he won’t remember it forever.

It truly is fascinating stuff. And it doesn’t stop there. Similar to the idea behind igod, chat bots are now emerging that simulate various personalities.

Now you can chat up Einstein with your take on the theory of relativity, discuss poetry with Shakespeare, or even get John Lennon’s thoughts on the breakup of the Beatles.

The Chatterbox Challenge

Fittingly, every year there’s even a high stakes contest for the best chat bot in the world. It’s called the Chatterbox Challenge, and the unique thing about it is you get a say.

Public voting for “Most Popular Bot” is going on right now through the end of April.

The following, from the Chatterbox Challenge web page, will prepare you for what to look for as you critique different entries:

Please chat with as many bots as possible and then ask yourself these questions:

How did the overall conversation go?

Was the bot responsive or simply evasive?

Did the bot for the most part answer and respond back appropriately or was the conversation full of off the wall remarks?

The better bots should give you the impression that you are really talking to a human being. Compare the qualities and shortcomings of each bot and then place your vote in a fair and unbiased way. The contest depends on the goodwill of all those taking part.

So where does all this leave a simple 8th grade Language Arts teacher like me? Quite frankly, I’m not sure. Eventually—maybe out of a job.

Chatty Chat bot Mania:

For nerds without real friends–like myself.

What follows is a list of links to chat bots just waiting to talk your ear off:

George can tell jokes, answer questions and hold conversations on subjects as complex as love and the universe. He also has an animated image of a bald, man.

Alice, as quoted from Wikipedia, “Alice (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) is an award-winning natural language processing chatterbot . . . inspired by Joseph Weizenbaum’s classical ELIZA program. It is one of the strongest programs of its type and has won the Loebner Prize three times (in 2000, 2001 and 2004).”

Robert or Cheryl Winner of the 2003 Chatterbox Challenge, Talkbot Robert or Cheryl give you a choice of genders, and some very intelligent conversation.

The Personality Forge Home to such renowned bots as:

Brother Jerome–2006, 2nd place Chatterbox Challenge (CBC) winner;
Bildgesmyth–3rd place, CBC 2006;
Aries–9th place, CBC 2006; and
God Louise-3rd place 2002 Loebner Prize winner. The

Personality Forge dubs itself as, “the world’s first community of living people and artificial intelligence entities . . .Here you’ll find thousands of AI personalities, including bartenders, college students, flirts, rebels, adventurers, fairies, gods . . . and even an AI hamster.”

34 responses so far ↓

1 Peteranswers.com and Peter Answers: Magic Tricks Revealed // Apr 15, 2007 at 5:25 am

[…] Did you like this post? Then you’ll love this one:Peter Answers and Igod: Logging In to the Spirit World […]
2 Lyrical Fool // Apr 15, 2007 at 3:18 pm

::choke::

Way fun! I was hit on by God.

Talk about a self-esteem booster.
3 skywindows // Apr 17, 2007 at 12:48 am

Me:
DO you have a wrinkled ass?
God:
That’s an interesting question I don’t hear everyday: Do I have a wrinkled ass.
I have a lot of friends on the Internet.
4 Mark // Apr 17, 2007 at 3:32 pm

Chris,
Great job on researching bots! I look forward to checking some of them out! Thanks for providing all these links.
5 Edward // Apr 19, 2007 at 12:09 pm

I LOVE YOU!

YOUR THE BEST TEACHER IN THE WORLD!

xoxo,

Edward
6 Nick // Apr 20, 2007 at 2:53 am

Another Community Voices in the Leader! Wow, you are a mini media conglomerate.

They really should give you a weekly column, Chris. Keep it coming. The only thing I look forward to in the Leader is you and that nutjob from Deer Park that writes into the opinions page.

See you Sunday.

Thanks Nick,

“Mini Media Conglomerate”

I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but I’ve never been called that. Kind of like the ring to it. This guy called me a “diabolical teaching genius” in a comment to this post awhile back. I kind of liked that one too.

Now I just have to figure out how to use these cool descriptors.

Thanks again. Like I said, I’m having a blast doing this.

Thanks for stoppinng by–and for the kind words.

Chris
7 Your Days in Sentences « the reflective teacher // Apr 22, 2007 at 1:45 pm

[…] Hoy–I should have hit the sack earlier last night. […]
8 Tubby // Apr 24, 2007 at 9:43 am

Here’s another to add to your list, this ones only like 2 months old but not bad. The guy who built it dropped out in grade 8 coinsedentally.
9 florian // Apr 26, 2007 at 2:20 pm

quan jorai une petite copine
10 Empowered! // Apr 29, 2007 at 5:04 pm

Hi Chris
I work in a library and our regular “boys club members” tried this one on me yesterday! It will give me great pleasure to watch again now I have the knowledge. Great site .
11 IMPORTANT // May 4, 2007 at 3:01 am

Hey i wanted to tell you that there are 2 more chatbots that you can chat with on msn messenger.
spleak@hotmail.com
and
smarterchild@hotmail.com
spleak is a 21 year old girl that is quite advanced and seems like a normal girl
smarterchild is pretty good except it tells you that it’s a robot while spleak maintains the image of a 21 yeear old girl.
12 joey // May 5, 2007 at 8:08 pm

ha
13 joey // May 5, 2007 at 8:18 pm

this is for “IMPORTANT”

does spleak give you viruses?
14 courteny lizana // May 9, 2007 at 9:54 pm

hey ok well we tryed this at school and i did not know what to think but now i get it and how to do peteranswered.com its really kool how you came up with that.I got my teacher Mr.Welch with it he was so scared that you was wathching him lol but yeah anyways
15 hany // May 17, 2007 at 11:23 pm

thanks lot for this web site
16 montserrat ruiz // May 22, 2007 at 1:04 pm

what is the point of this? what is the point of chatting with robots???
17 suleman // May 26, 2007 at 8:30 am

How peteranswer.com work?
18 bob // Jun 3, 2007 at 10:56 am

Me:
who is that
God:
What does “that” refer to?
Me:
that
God:
That is ” What does “that” refer to?”.
Me:
that
God:
That is ” That is ” What does “that” refer to?”".
Me:
that
God:
That is ” That is ” That is ” What does “that” refer to?”".
Me:
that
God:
That is ” That is ” That is ” That is ” What does “that” refer to?”".
Me:
that
God:
That is ” That is ” That is ” That is ” That is ” What does “that” refer to?”".
19 emma // Jun 15, 2007 at 3:10 pm

i love this site because you nkow everything in the world …thanks
20 Umair // Jun 25, 2007 at 11:27 am

hi peter how ru i want to ask u some secrets please tell me it is necessary to me plzzz
21 Tony // Jul 14, 2007 at 7:16 am

hey u didnt answer any of my questions…….
22 reema // Jul 14, 2007 at 10:31 pm

what is my sisters name?
23 jo-ann // Aug 31, 2007 at 9:16 pm

who is in my house
24 nadeen // Sep 10, 2007 at 12:13 pm

who i’m with?
25 pookie // Sep 10, 2007 at 9:00 pm

who am i dating?
26 katie sindle // Oct 12, 2007 at 7:20 am

i love this page igod the best lol
27 Mitch // Oct 14, 2007 at 5:32 pm

NO! ive known about messanger bots for EVER and igod was a little funny but realy cheesy and bad.
28 Mitch // Oct 14, 2007 at 5:33 pm

o and edward? you posted the same day ans my birthday
29 michi // Nov 25, 2007 at 12:06 pm

Me:
me neither
God:
You can say that again.
Me:
me neither
God:
You can say that again.
Me:
me neither
God:
You can say that again.
Me:
me neither
God:
You can say that again.
Me:
me neither
God:
You can say that again.

sooo blöööd
30 michi // Nov 25, 2007 at 12:13 pm

God:
What do you really want to talk about?
Me:
stuff
God:
Be less specific :-).
Me:
everything
God:
That is a lot.
Me:
yes
31 Crystal Anderson // Nov 28, 2007 at 5:44 pm

igod is really funny. I like that you posted a blog on it.

Crystal
32 emma // Jan 7, 2008 at 12:36 pm

this is not god this bloody spirtual rubbish this bloody haunt you later on im not jokin this is no game nor joke this is a serious game played by these spirts do not use it again
33 fatima // Feb 4, 2008 at 1:07 pm

this is just an incredible experience for me to meet peter’s website and asking him question which is related to my life………….without speaking some more words THANKING U FOR CO-OPERATION
34 kub0 // Apr 25, 2008 at 4:52 am

Me:
err..
God:
Um.
Me:
aaa…
God:
That is a very original thought.
Me:
ha?
God:
I am so glad you find this amusing, .
Me:
yeah
God:
Yippee!
Me:
this
God:
This is ” Yippee! “.
Me:
this
God:
This is ” This is ” Yippee! “.
Me:
this
God:
This is ” This is ” This is ” Yippee! “.
Me:
this
God:
This is ” This is ” This is ” This is ” Yippee! “.
Me:
this
God:
This is ” This is ” This is ” This is ” This is ” Yippee! “.
Me:
crap..
God:
Your criticism is noted, .
Me:
yeah right
God:
I am usually right.

oh…this is funny..
I wonder how the algorithm works..

Chris Wondra . com

School teacher, dad, homeowner turns superhero but has to learn his powers along the way