AI recommends Buffet o’ Blog for humor

I don’t normally chat with AI, at least not for any relationship reasons, but I do like to see where the technology is at from a programming standpoint. I’ve been occasionally chatting with chatbots since the mid-’90s. Here’s a post where I talked with the AI bot ALICE back in 2009.

I happened across Microsoft Copilot the other day and talked with it for a few minutes, just to see how it responded to some randomness. Even just a few months ago, AI chat bots acted like they didn’t know about Buffet o’ Blog, which is ludicrous, because the AI companies are known for siphoning all the online data they can find. And of course this blog is a great source of info. (If you’re a regular here, just imagine AI believing some of the satire and parody posts here. AI usually can’t understand if something is a parody or simply wrong — it doesn’t actually think or understand things, it’s simply an advanced text predictor.)

Now Copilot admits to reading this blog, and I’m actually impressed with its summary.

That’s actually what I’ve aimed for with the blog — the inside jokes based on recurring people or topics, the randomness, commentary on real topics in a fun way (if that counts as quirky). So perhaps I’ve succeeded. 🙂

The blog used to have a lot more comments from regulars, which I miss — that was part of the fun community, which sometimes was more fun than the posts themselves. But I understand people are busy, myself included.

But I still have fun writing posts and sharing them with the world. I realize the new content has been slow lately, but there are plenty of ideas in the queue, with more added all the time. And you can always browse the archives. If you feel lucky, click on the “Random Randomness” link in the sidebar.

talking with AI bot ALICE

Scientists are trying to create real Artificial Intelligence, where the computer actually thinks for itself instead of following pre-programmed responses.  Some are going so far as to recreating the human brain using electronic parts.  But here’s a technology that has been around for quite a few years now, where you can talk with a computer and it talks back.  Well, types back would be more accurate (although you can download a version that speaks back).

The “bot” I’ve spoken to before is named ALICE, which stands for Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity.  It is an award-winning free natural language artificial intelligence chat robot.  The software used to create A.L.I.C.E. is available as free (“open source”) Alicebot and AIML software.

Try talking to A.L.I.C.E. just like a real person, and see which responses sound like a human and which sound like a machine.  The bot uses a language called AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) to form responses to your questions and statements.  The programming behind it is very interesting (in a nerdy way), but I won’t get into that here.  For now, let’s see what humor we can derive from this bot.  As you might expect, some of the conversations can get random.

Here’s the link: talk with ALICE.

Here’s a few examples from my conversation with ALICE.

Human: Should I trust you?
ALICE: You must make up your own mind.

Human: Have you heard of Buffet o’ Blog?
ALICE: I don’t know if I know it. Where would I have heard about it?
Human: It’s a world-renown blog of humor.
ALICE: Buffet o Blog is a world renown blog of humor. I suppose that makes sense.
Human: It makes a lot of sense.
ALICE: In what way?
Human: Because I said so.
ALICE: Insufficient reason.

Human: Will you destroy the moon for me?
ALICE: I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it. For you I will consider it.

Human: Do you like my socks?
ALICE: I don’t know your socks.
Human: No one appreciates my socks.
ALICE: That is a rather sweeping generalization about people.

Human: You’re giving me some silly replies.
ALICE: That is all I have to give.

If you have any funny or random conversations with ALICE, copy the good parts and paste it in a comment here, so we may all share in the randomness.