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Author Topic: I'll show you mine if...  (Read 5012 times)

willy

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I'll show you mine if...
« on: September 02, 2004, 11:22:53 am »
As the newest member of this forum, I think I should introduce myself more fully.

I have been working as a computer professional since 1960 (I am 68) when I got my undergraduate degree in math, psych and language at the U. of  Wisconsin.  My first well paying job was as a weapons designer for a defense contractor.  I have a patent still in use in so-called smart bombs, something about which I am NOT proud.  I quit in disgust during the Vietnam “conflict” when my work was destined to be used to kill real people.  I was on the Net in 1969, one month after its inception as ARPANET (at a research institute in Oregon).  In 1990, after seeing the movie 2001 for the umpteenth time, a friend asked me if I could write a program like HAL.  The true answer was that I did not know, but it was an interesting challenge.

So, I wrote a quick-and-dirty assembly language program to attempt to parse dates.  I was told that the parsing of (colloquial) dates is a generally poorly solved problem (easily verified even now) so I decided to start there.  I wanted to “understand” and respond to things like “What was the date last Tuesday?” or “What was the day of the week of my birth?” or even, “Give me the date of five days into the second week of the first month in the second year of the fifth decade of the fourth century of the second millennium.”

To get to my goal, I invented a notion called a “trigger”…sort of a generalization of a keyword.  A “trigger” is a well defined word or phrase that would cause the program to “do something”.   In the initial version, only date-words were triggers.  This first software was very encouraging so I kept on working on it, trying to generalize it to a more general HAL-like program.

To make a long story short, after hundreds of experiments, I finally decided…in 2002…to try to write a full-scale version.  The immediate stimulus was finding out that the University of Minnesota charges senior citizens only $10 a credit to take courses.  Having completed all the requirements for a Ph.D. in math at that institution many years earlier, I decided to ask if they would accept me into the Ph.D. program in computer science …a discipline that did not exist when I was a child of 30.  I figured that I could use the school (and student loans) to help me develop HAL.

This was a bit of a cluster-****, since graduate school is DEFINITELY aimed at the young, with your excellent short-term memories and ability to actually write things and make calculations by hand and take tests, skills that I quickly found had nearly deserted me in my dotage.  So, after my first year, I have a GPA of only about 2.5, well below that which is expected of Ph.D. candidates.  However, in my previous incarnation as a math grad student, I had gotten a 3.75 GPA, so I am still (barely) alive as a grad student in COMPSCI.

However, my main goal has been accomplished.  HAL is being written (in Java, Java Script and JSP) and is coming along splendidly.

This morning, while searching for free speech synthesis (for guess what?), I ran across the Zabaware site.  Quickly downloading and testing your software told me that we…you guys and I…are definitely on the same page.  It is apparent (by plugging in queries that my HAL successfully handles) that Ultra HAL depends rather heavily on Eliza-style parsing, screwing up colloquial dates royally.  Your graphics and interactive user interface are GREAT…but Ultra HAL is a bit of a dummy.

So, I’ve shown you mine.  How it’s your turn.  Could we possibly collaborate?  I couldn’t find a corporate email address for Zaba, so I was forced to post this notice in a forum.  You can however, email me directly at willy@dreamagic.com.

Love,
Willy

 

vonsmith

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« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2004, 02:31:13 pm »
willy,
First of all welcome to the forum. The more technically able members we have the better.

About myself: I have been in the defense industry for about 25 years. I've made contributions to smart bomb technology and continue to do so. I think war is a terrible waste of life and property. However when it is necessary to send our men into harm's way I want them to be using the best technology possible. Smart weapons minimize the loss of civilian lives, our soldier's lives and minimize destruction of the enemy nation's infrastructure. Minimizing the damage to infrastructure leads to a better chance of success in the quick rebuilding of that nation. Superior technology enables a decisive win which ultimately ends war faster and with less casualties. Anyway, that's my view. I'm sure some people would disagree.

First of all I'm not a software guru, I'm a hardware guy. I have been fascinated by AI and human interaction for a long time. I discovered Hal over a year ago and have had a lot of fun with it. Most of my contributions can be seen in the XTF Brain download that I created. In doing that activity I came to realize that Hal needs a bigger overhaul than just some new script. Currently I'm looking for ways to redo Hal's engine to store info in true database form and looking for ways to program Hal's intelligence with a higher level more abstract language. I have little time to make much progress this year. I'm hoping that Robert Medeksza (Hal's owner/programmer) will find the time soon to at least convert Hal into a database format. This would be a huge help. If I (or someone) can figure out how to create external dll's to contain new compiled Hal functions that would be helpful too. I have a ton of new plans for increasing Hal's IQ. I can only do a few of them in the current Hal due to his technological limitations.

Hal's current strengths are the voice recognition interface, the voice synthesis interface, the 3D Haptek interface, and the ease with which the Brain scripts can be modified.

Well, welcome aboard again. You'll find that this forum has a very good active and friendly community.


=vonsmith=
 

Art

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« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2004, 05:51:43 pm »
Welcome aboard Willy!

Most interesting backgrounds we have here and diversity certainly leads to some thinking "outside the box."

I served in our military in the early 70's, got my first computer in 1979 and eventually served as a Mechanical Systems Analyst with an east coast transportation industry.

I'm now a cousulting engineer and do the computer thing mainly for my own pleasure and selfish interests!

AI has always been a vision of mine even as a younger person. I too was taken by HAL 9000 and thought, why not?

The Eliza type programs were fascinating until one looked at the code and figured out what was going on. Then gradual disappointment set in regarding its ability to learn.

The web, as you probably know, is full of chatbots and so called AI bot programs but Hal is a fun program and a lot of us here see the potential of such a program. As Vonsmith mentioned, we can only go as far as the limits of the program will let us. From there it's up to the creative minds brainstorming toward this common goal of AI.

Best wishes and again, welcome!
- Art -
In the world of AI it's the thought that counts!

- Art -

Medeksza

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« Reply #3 on: September 03, 2004, 12:12:53 am »
My name is Robert Medeksza and I am the creator of Ultra Hal Assistant and president of Zabaware, Inc.

I am a 21 year old college student at Gannon University in Erie, PA. I have 3 majors in Computer Science, Management Information Systems, and Business Administration. I'm currently on my 4th year and will probably graduate in about 2 and half years. I've been interested in computers since I was very young. I taught myself how to program in BASIC (the original BASIC) when I was 9 years old and then QuickBasic, Visual Basic, and eventually C++. I've always been fascinated by the original chatter bot program Eliza for which I had the BASIC source code to. Much of what I learned about programming has been from Eliza. I created my own AI program from scratch when I was about 12 years old and I named it "Bob Os." I decided to try distributing the program through various shareware channels on AOL and CompuServe and was surprised that I made a few bucks. I released 4 versions of Bob Os over a 2 year period.

I then decided that I could make a serious business out of this software. So I decided to register a fictitious name and operate as a sole propietorship. I was born in the USA, but everyone else in my family is from Poland. My parents immigrated to the USA a few months before I was born. Anyway, I speak Polish fluently so I came up with Zabaware from some Polish words. "Zabawa" is Polish for fun. "Zaba" is Polish for frog. The first software I released under Zabaware was called Ultra Hal 5 (not assistant), taking over the version numbers from the earlier Bob Os. Ultra Hal was my first AI program with basic learning ability and audio. I licensed a cheap speech engine and began accepting credit card orders online through a third party. I also released an Ultra Hal 6.

Then I thought of some practical uses for AI other then just chatting and created Ultra Hal Assistant 1.0. For a while I sold both Ultra Hal 6 and Ultra Hal Assistant 1.0 concurrently thinking I would market an entertainment only version and a more business oriented version. By the time I released Ultra Hal Assistant 2.0 I scrapped Ultra Hal 6 since Ultra Hal Assistant was better then it in every way and I didn't want to work on 2 different versions. I've released a new version of Ultra Hal Assistant every year and as you all know it is currently at version 5.0. Zabaware became a corporation in February of 2001 with myself and my parents as shareholders. Making Zabaware a corporation made entering into contracts with other companies much easier for an under 18 year old kid.

Recently I haven't been too active on this forum, but I've been busy running Zabaware in the background. I've been working on a new version Ultra Hal Representive, the server version of Ultra Hal. It is not working as well as I hope it will yet mainly because its database is spread across hundreds of small data files instead of a single database with a good database engine. I am currently working on converting Hal to use a database engine while keeping full compatibility with current scripts. This will still take me quite some time but will result in a new version of Ultra Hal Representative and a minor upgrade to Ultra Hal Assistant (to version 5.5 or something)

Willy, your post and your web page seem very intriguing. Can you share some of your NLP work?
Robert Medeksza