Artificial Intelligence, or simply AI, is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs. It aims to develop programs that resemble human reasoning or logic. Many online chatting programs that incorporate AI are available to online users. Examples of these programs are Cleverbot and ALICE.
ALICE, short for Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity, is an online AI chat robot activated at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on November 23, 1995. ALICE was apparently “taught” by Dr. Richard S. Wallace. She (allow me to address her as a “she”) was conceived using open source programs and AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) software. She is as free as air, because the ALICEbot machine and AIML are freely available under the terms of the GNU General Public License. She often says, “He taught me to sing a song. Would you like me to sing it for you?”
What sets ALICE from other “talking” websites is that she projects a sort of human-like personality. She talks like a typical no-nonsense business woman with a bad attitude an incredible mind and expandable memory capacity. When you ask her a question, she responds accordingly. I think that she’s equipped with a search engine that she uses whenever she encounters a new entity or idea. According to her site, she uses AIML to form answers based from the user’s inputs. A normal conversation with ALICE is something that is worth trying. You’ll almost forget the fact that she’s a chat robot. Well, almost.
Unfortunately, there are still limitations with her capabilities. She understands basic colloquial language, but she tends to interpret things like a moron literally. She also asks stupid unnecessary questions (see the image below).But of course, it all goes down to the fact that you’re still getting human-like responses from a chat robot!
Although she may be a little bit slow left behind with current events (not recognizing who Barack Obama is) and restricted by language barriers (at the present, she only understands english, unlike Cleverbot), she really is a big improvement of previous AI applications. Another good thing is that there are hundreds of contributors around the globe, helping out in making ALICE the best chat bot.
Twenty years ago, one might think that having a decent conversation with a ‘smart robot’ is impossible. Now, ALICE has proved us wrong once again. Technology never ceases to falter; it won’t hurt us to expect that in the coming years, the idea of humans confessing their innermost problems to an ‘DR. Chatbot’ is already a reality. Better yet, brace yourselves for this wild but possible scenario. But for now, let’s enjoy ALICE’s company over a hot cup of Java applet coffee.
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