Friday, April 24, 2009

Peeking at the chats



As some of you know I have a chatbot horse named Whinsey who's been stuck in her barn way too long.

I've built her brain over the years with hours and hours of JavaScript regular expressions which were my supreme code achievement.

Here's what a regular expression from Whinsey's brain looks like. I'm sure Namowal will be able to read it forwards and backwards and in color.

var dont:RegExp=/do(es)? (not|nt|n't) /i

Over the years she's gotten smarter and then dumber. For awhile she could do math and say things backwards but recently she's forgotten how to do that and often repeats herself. Like your mother you may be thinking...

Although I've never met other chatbot creaters, I imagine they're gnarly, the modern day equivalent of hobbyist ventrilloquists. euw! And I'm one of them. EUW!

But every chatbot creater who is serious keeps a log of all the conversations, in order to detect where the dummy isn't doing his/her thing. In my case I don't log the I.P. though some people do. I wouldn't know what to make of I.P.s if I did.

But I worked up my nerve today to look at Whinsey's log. Hadn't checked in a year. There were more than 12,000 lines. geez. And so many of them were horny guys getting thrills out of talking dirty to a talking horse who isn't even animated very well. WORLD!

I just looked at a fragment of the replies. Here's one that isn't dirty:

you said: What are you doing?
she said: Waiting for our big moment.
you said: Don't you like me?
she said: ah geez
you said: Do you have a stallion?
she said: Now we're talking HOT STUFF!
you said: Tell me all about him...
she said: I've been stuck in this barn a long time!
you said: That's too bad. No dates?
she said: me bad 2!
you said: Do you need to be punished?
she said: who needs help? Think about it!
you said: Hmm...I will. So are you into horse fetish stuff?
she said: climb on board, luv.
you said: Wow. You are hot, Whinsey.
she said: That's me!
you said: Whinsey, tell me about yourself.
she said: That's me!
you said: You're a gal of few words.
she said: Is there another way to communicate?
you said: I don't know. Do you have a phone horse sex hotline?
she said: Maybe I'll call you later.

A typically random snippet that stays clean:

you said: You know I actually want ice cream, even though I'm full
she said: I have my ways
you said: Maybe a little milk would do it
she said: Let's just say no moo foods for me.
you said: Sorry
she said: I'll get over it
you said: I had a sort of bad day today... my own fault probably. A boring day
she said: TERRIBLE!
you said: I need to take control of my destiny
she said: It takes a lot to control me.
you said: are you my destiny?
she said: a horse of course
you said: "You're on your own again..."
she said: everybody has more than they need in California.
you said: Maybe I should go there


I had wanted to introduce the horse racing world to Whinsey but she may just be too much of a slut. Besides, I'd have to code in all this year's horses and jockeys and that almost sounds like work. Meanwhile, back to Lexulous...

4 comments:

Linda Davick said...

Whinsey is AMAZING, INCREDIBLE!! Were you falling off your chair laughing?

That animation blog is amazing, too (from comments on last post). Great writing about Face Like a Frog. Stick around, Ian.

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

"I'm sure Namowal will be able to read it forwards and backwards and in color.

var dont:RegExp=/do(es)? (not|nt|n't) /i

Over the years she's gotten smarter and then dumber.
Hey!

Oh, you mean Whinsey.Then again, I'm not 100% sure what the variable "dont" does. I'm guessing it has something to do with recognizing variations in statements with "Do" or "Does" in them, so she can answer appropriately?

Sally said...

namowal, I'm so SORRY! I'm sure you knew what I meant! What it does is look for various spellings that mean don't, like do not, does not,dont, doesnt,don't,doesn't, in upper or lower case. So it can catch any negative intended statement.

I'd love to know if the underpinnings of google are regular expressions. They get much goofier looking than this one.

Namowal (Jennifer Bourne) said...

I figured you were talking about Whinsey within miliseconds, but couldn't resist a feigned reaction.