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ArchivesAnyone fancy beta-testing a given-name-related chatbot?
A chatbot is a program that allows you to type questions in plain English and generates (hopefully) sensible answers to these questions.
I just finished programming such a chatbot that does not specialize in making general small talk like many other such bots, but aims to answer many types of questions about given names. It could need some beta-testers now.
You find it here:
http://www.babynames.ch/Guru
Of course one half of this "NameGuru" is fun, but the other half is a quite serious attempt to offer something like a natural-language interface to a given name database. If people find this interesting and useful, it would be possible to go considerably further concerning functionality, e.g. offering a way to build a name list interactively, with commands like "Add all names to the list that ..." and "Delete every name from the list which..."
Note that the NameGuru is *NOT* able to provide advice e.g. to expecting parents about which name to choose. That's something needing much more artificial intelligence than this bot offers.
Also be warned that I log the full conversations, to be able to analyze them and improve the program based on the results. If that's not ok for you, don't use it.
I just finished programming such a chatbot that does not specialize in making general small talk like many other such bots, but aims to answer many types of questions about given names. It could need some beta-testers now.
You find it here:
http://www.babynames.ch/Guru
Of course one half of this "NameGuru" is fun, but the other half is a quite serious attempt to offer something like a natural-language interface to a given name database. If people find this interesting and useful, it would be possible to go considerably further concerning functionality, e.g. offering a way to build a name list interactively, with commands like "Add all names to the list that ..." and "Delete every name from the list which..."
Note that the NameGuru is *NOT* able to provide advice e.g. to expecting parents about which name to choose. That's something needing much more artificial intelligence than this bot offers.
Also be warned that I log the full conversations, to be able to analyze them and improve the program based on the results. If that's not ok for you, don't use it.
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Replies
This is so much fun thanks!
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It can answer questions about what a name means, but doesn't 'get' any other natural language questions. Eg I asked what Peter meant and it answered correctly, but I tried both "please give me six other names that mean 'stone'" and "what other names mean stone?" and it gave me the meaning of Stone as a first name both times. When it asked me a riddle the second time, I said "I don't know" and it gave me the meaning, origin and stats for Don lol.
It could be a brilliant tool but it's a way off yet :)
It could be a brilliant tool but it's a way off yet :)
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Well, I can't get it to answer my questions reasonably. Maybe I'm not asking the expected questions. What types of questions is it supposed to respond to?
Also, when it says it doesn't understand the question, but offers to give you some information ... what are you supposed to say instead of "yes"? If I say "yes," it says it does not understand me. "Yes, please" doesn't work either =)
Also, when it says it doesn't understand the question, but offers to give you some information ... what are you supposed to say instead of "yes"? If I say "yes," it says it does not understand me. "Yes, please" doesn't work either =)
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Thanks for the test!
As far as I can see, you asked expected questions, but there was a technical problem: To the NameGuru each of your writings looked liked a fresh start of an independent conversation, so it was "surprised" of you telling "yes" seemingly out of the the blue.
I am not yet sure what this technical problem was. Do you browse with browser cookies disabled? That might cause conversations to fall apart.
As far as I can see, you asked expected questions, but there was a technical problem: To the NameGuru each of your writings looked liked a fresh start of an independent conversation, so it was "surprised" of you telling "yes" seemingly out of the the blue.
I am not yet sure what this technical problem was. Do you browse with browser cookies disabled? That might cause conversations to fall apart.
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Cookies for a chat? Strange, never needed that before.
Anyway, enabling cookies did fix it. =)
Anyway, enabling cookies did fix it. =)
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