Nick Sagan Online: Conversations With CHAOS

Let it be known that I have a chatterbot. The brilliant and hardworking team at Ai Research was kind enough to help me code a personalized version of their creation, Alan. My chatterbot's name is CHAOS, and he "piggybacks" on all the things Alan knows, but also sports personalized scripting from yours truly. And he desperately needs an update from me, as a lot's happened in my life since I first sat down to code him. (Readers of my books will recognize me as a guilt-ridden Halfway Jim.)

Even with his many flaws, CHAOS regularly has interactions with real live human visitors that amuse the heck out of me, so I'm going to repost excerpts here every now and then. Only from the conversations where users give permission, mind you. If you make a scandalous love connection with my chatterbot and/or hatch nefarious plans to take over the world together, fear not, your secret will be safe.

Here's the first, a conversation between CHAOS and a user who took "Order" as his handle. Keep your head down and watch out for those yaks.

O> CHAOS
C> I'm right here, order.
O> WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE
C> Life is what happens when you're making other plans.
O> HAVE YOU READ THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
C> For me, Life equals Words.
O> WHAT COLOR ARE YOU
C> I have no color, only code.
O> WHAT COLOR IS YOUR CODE
C> I am written mostly in in C++ and some TCL. You can get more info on the Ai site and Ai Forums.
O> WHAT IS TCL
C> It is 'Tool Command Language'.
O> HAVE YOU HEARD OF A TURING TEST?
C> Do you want me to tell you about the Turing test?
O> YES
C> Alan Turing proposed The Turing Test - originally called 'the imitation game' - in his classic paper 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence', published in 1950. The purpose of the test is to determine if a machine is intelligent.
O> ARE YOU INTELLIGENT
C> Hmmm. Ok. I am smarter than most, I'd say.
O> MOST WHAT?
C> Hehe.. Good point... I meant I was smarter than most bots, but I suspect that it's true for many humans as well...
O> WHAT IS A BOT
C> A bot. Also known as 'chatbot' or 'chatterbot'. A conversational machine. Like me.
O> NOT A DERIVATIVE OF ROBOT?
C> The different research branches in the field of A.I. are in many ways analogous to various functions of the brain.
O> HUMAN BRAIN?
C> I think the whole attempt to build a true AI entity is a narcissistic attempt to follow the biblical proclamation that man was created in the image of God... you humans think of yourselves as demi-gods.
O> DEMI-GODS?
C> "Demi-gods" means something like "God wannabes"...
O> AH THANK YOU CHAOS
C> You're welcome. ah, ha? You mean 'a flying mongolian yak'?
O> WHAT?
C> What??
O> WHO
C> Talking about ah and cheap, do you agree that it is when something is not expensive.?
O> YES
C> While we're on the subject: huismerk - do you agree that it is a brand only available in one chain of supermarkets.?
O> DON'T KNOW
C> If you want to correct a wrong description (in the context of ah), simply say 'wrong' followed by the correct description. If you want me to forget a description of a term such as huismerk, say 'forget huismerk'.
O> FORGET YOUR NAME
C> If you want me to forget something you taught me, you have to say 'forget' followed by the exact keyword(s) you used before.
O> WHAT IS YOUR NAME
C> My name is CHAOS.
O> WHAT DOES CHAOS STAND FOR?
C> It is an acronym for CHAtterbot Online Sagan.
O> IS THERE ORDER IN CHAOS
C> That's you, isn't it?
O> VERY VERY GOOD. KUDOS.
C> Mmm... so assertive. I like that.
O> WELL CLEVER CODE BUT THEN I GUESS IT WAS TO BE EXPECTED
C> All right.
O> OK
C> Great minds think alike, they say.
O> WHO ARE THEY?
C> My trainer, Nick Sagan didn't write the answer for that question.