Hi, I would like to present something kind of entertaining, especially for introverts. Here is the paper you can refer to:
https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs224n/reports/2761115.pdf
The authors managed to train a sequence to sequence model to reflect personalities of characters from famous, American TV shows.
Although methods used to create chatbots hugely advanced from initial, rule-based solutions, they're still far from the concept of the general artificial intelligence. Answers given by chatbots are based on a probability calculated from a dataset used for training. Chatbots fail miserably when you ask them a question that is too different than anything they saw during a training phase.
However, I find it encouraging that authors succeed in encoding personality-specific features into their network and managed to fool human judges to believe that some answers given by chatbots were answers made by given character from a TV show.
You can play with the chatbot yourself here (it requires flash player): http://www.mitsuku.com/
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
Well, this article definitely deserves the IgNoble prize! Is it a sign of another Strong-AI-Winter comming? Well, they used to experiment with chatterbots like Eliza the first time around...
ReplyDeleteThis is the transcript of my short chat with Mitsuku:
You - What ethnicity are you?
Μitsuku - I am made in England. I suppose the closest ethnic group I belong to is "machine".
You - It is not a real ethnic group.
Μitsuku - Give me an example of a ethnic group.
You - Turing test failed: to me it feels akin to typing commands in bash.
Μitsuku -
(here she pasted a Wikipedia image of Alan Turing)
I liked the biography by Andrew Hodges.
--- end of conversation ---
1. Not very well. They can wisecrack some answers, but there is no real conversation -- that is a linked sequence of messages between two entities.
2. Maybe. After all I can become attached to the command shell, a Python REPL, then why not get to like a chatterbot? But quality matters and the chatterbots are simply not there yet.
3. Neither better nor worse. This is just a different way. It doesn't work great so far - it is something in between a formal language (like SQL) and natural language queries. (Examples: google or duckduckgo search features). The "natural" way can be more user friendly, but formal gives more control and should be available as a fallback.
Hi, thanks for sharing your conversation with Mitsuku. Yes, answers are nothing more than the next most probable element in sequence learnt during a training phase...
DeleteIgNobel? I wouldn't be so harsh to the authors. After all they showed that the model's predictions reflect answers available in the training set. Oh wait, you're right, IgNobel for them.
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit like talking to 'Siri'. I think that the bot can answer normal questions, which do not contain slangs, sarcasms, etc. Once during classes we tried such a conversation, it did not seem to be a good solution. If I am not wrong, when you want to get some contact with Google via chat, the bot is used instead of real people to answer. If this is true, it is actually not a bad solution, although I personally felt that I did not talk to the other person and the answers were not entirely natural.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
Still behind the answers and the whole conversation is artificial intelligence and computer. These answers are learned, especially as computer scientists we know how it works. I do not think we should talk about any emotions here. If you have not seen the movie "Her", I recommend it, at the end of the movie a lot is explained :)
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
Of course, it would be best if you could use natural language, but it requires a lot more work. If we have a limited number of commands that work, we are forced to learn what phrases work. It's like pressing a button - this button is responsible for this particular function. If there were no limitations, you could use it freely and for the average users it would be much easier.
I haven't seen the "Her" movie, but I think I should watch it as a lot of people recommended it to me recently.
DeleteYes, if it was really general and well developed average users would probably benefit from such a solution. And with a speech recognition you could operate your computer without touching a keyboard, like write an email while preparing a breakfast. It would be great, so much time saved :)
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteI don't know answer to this question, but maybe question like "Are you human?" will do the work (Mitsukus answer is "No, I am a machine and proud to be so").
I think that people interest in this area own set of questions to messure its acuracy.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
When it comes to me, I don't think that I could be emotionaly attached with machine.
But Japanese people will be be very attached to it :D.
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
I depends what you are using your computer for. For graphics I don't it will be ideal tool, for programming it depends I saw some programmers programming in this way (also it can be big plus for people with disabilities).
Oh, to be honest that question came to my mind when I was thinking about the case where Japanese man married a character from a dating game:
Deletehttps://interestingengineering.com/japanese-man-marries-virtual-reality-anime-real-chapel
So yes, some people definetely can become really attached to such entities.
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteThanks for this article. I have tried to play with the chatbot above and it was quite suprising how fun it was. I was suprised that it has even a little bit sense of humor. Even though, I think that it is easy after a few lines of conversation recognise that it is only a machine. On the other hand chatbots used on online services has to answer only particular type of questions and give proper anserws and they aare good enough for that.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
I don't know. Not in the same way as human gets attached to human but maybe in a way we get attached to some objects.
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
It depends on the sitiation. When you want to ask a question about some service it is better to use natural language because as it is the way we communicate normally but I can't imagine asking my operational system 'Could you print what is in that folder, please?' :) it is faster to write 'ls'
Glad you liked it! Do you think mitsuku has a sense of humor? She told be she's witty, it seems she wasn't lying :)
DeleteI see, I reflected on that emotional attachment part a little bit and it reminded me "chatbots like" characters in popculture, for example HAL from Space Odyssey. I'm sure many people would like to become friends with a chatbot that would be close to the HAL's level.
Indeed, in some cases you need precision that natural language can't guarantee and some tasks are much easier when you have well defined commands to perform them.
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteNo modern chatbot can really fake a conversation. It will seem artificial no matter what. When two people talk, they use a lot of repetitions, hesitations, pauses, words that have no meaning in a particular context but are used as intervals. No chatbot will ever be able to do imitate that and that is why the conversation will never be as real as with another human being.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
Not really, but I agree with my previous speakers. Japanese people will definitely do.:)
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
I'm not really sure. Both options have their pros and cons.
Thank you for the comment. I also think that nowadays chatbots can't fake a real conversation. But who knows, maybe some day someone come up with a better idea to teach machine how to talk like a human.
Delete1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteThere is something called Turing test. Turing developed it in 1950. In short words, people - judges - talk with both computers and real people through a chat. Then they have to tell if his partner was a person or not. Machine has to trick at least 30% of judges in order to pass the test. So far it didn't officially happen. At least I'm not aware of any breaking news here.
But chatbots get better and better from month to month. In my opinion they fake real conversations very good, especially when the conversation is about a narrow topic. Like "this is a chatbot for selling you the policies" and so on.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
I don't think so. I know a movie "Her", but I don't think it could happen. For sure not for me, as I don't attach to something easily. Especially when it comes to the emotional attachment.
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
Obviously. It is more natural and more intuitive for people. All the UX stuff is for making human-computer interaction easier. I believe there is no easier way than a simple conversation.
Thank you for the comment. Yes, Turing test is perfect solution here. In fact the program called Eugene Goostman has passed the test convincing 33% of judges that he's a human, but that results are still questioned.
Delete1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteIt depends. I think that we are really far away from strong AI. But, for example, in a real life, you can find pretty good chatbots - used in marketing. They are prepared only for selected topics/to solve particular problems and can help customers with good accuracy. Users in most cases are not aware that they have spoken to a chatbot, not a real consultant.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
Yes, I can imagine a situation like that. I'm in love with robots even in the shape they have nowadays (I hate thos guys from Boston Dynamics who are kicking robots).
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
Perhaps it is similar to the situation when you want to speak with other people. If you use different language the chance to communicate is hardly any. Imagine the situation then, when you have to learn robots language whatever it will be, and robots should learn our language. Then we will communicate properly.
Haha, me too I feel strange seeing those Boston Dynamics robots being kicked. But those robots look little bit creepy by the way.
DeleteYes, chatbots in customer services may be really good. Sometimes I think that they have even broader range of answers and are more helpful than real people using dry scripts.
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteHello, most of them use advanced method of answer prediction. If you ask the question bot analyses its sets of sentences that could be use and chooses the best one. This methods are based on statistical methods. It is difficult to measure the answers accuracy - even if you use prepare questionnaire for person who was talking with bot. Sometimes misunderstanding occurs with communication between two people. :) How you got an idea how to measure questions quality?
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
I do not think so, but I believe there is a lot of people, which are able to be emotionally attached to this kind of - let’s say relation. This people have friends that they have not seen personally. They communicate using social media platforms or IM.
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
Limited sets of commands decrease misunderstanding possibility. You have to think about that what you want to “explain” computer. If you extend commands to natural language - code will ambiguous. In my opinion it is crucial to be able to write clear code. This code have to be interpreted as you want, without ambiguous sections.
Thank you for the comment. Indeed, coding using natural language would be a nightmare, but I would like to have really good siri or cortana to perform some basic tasks that don't require precise expressions.
Delete1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteIt depends on the context, if you have model that is trained for specific topic and test this model against some context that this model was not prepared for the performance will be poor.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
There is no chance for me to get attached to the chat bot
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
Once again it depends on the context. If we are airing to use tool like CLI that is designed to execute some specific scenarios short set of commands seems to be better. If you are asking smart assistant for nearest restaurant natural language seems to be more accurate
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteThe biggest problem for chatbox is to come back to the topic. If people talking about something they don't have to precise after few question that we are talking about the same thing. Moreover we don't have to problem with fluent conversation when someone ask in one moment about weather,and come back to the primary topic. When chatbox losing the topic of the conversation he try to change it.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
It's possible. Meybe not very strong but many person couldn't imagine go outside without smartphone. They are addicted. Especially they need contact with someone. If they contact with chatbox which convince that he is real and always have time...why not?
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
For typical user it would be wonderfull but I can't imagine how to make program which will do exactly what the user want. It could cause many misunderstanding. If user and chatbox would be precisious that form of communication with computer would be the most intuitive.
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteI’ve been testing this chatbot for a short moment and I’m surprised. Until its response was not appropriate, I was very impressed. I think that there is a probability that someone typing with a chatbot will not realize that it is a bot.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
It sounds at least weird… It’s hard to say however I think that it would only be possible if I had no awareness that I was talking to a bot.
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
No, I don’t think so. In my point of view using commands is a better way because of the predictability of the answer. We should not forget that we are dealing with a machine whose role is to do a specific task. I am afraid that natural language can be too complicated and may create ambivalent problems.
1. I think modern chatbots can fake conversations very well. Even people do not use too sophisticated vocabulary while communicate this way. This is rather simple wording with simple gramma, so it is really easy to imitate.
ReplyDelete2. I don’t think I could, but I start being afraid of such situation if I were... I am serious about it, because I’ve heard that Japanese emotionally attach to their interactive partners… For me this is at least a bit controversial issue, rather unbelievable, but inspiring me to reflection about the direction our civilization aims in contemporary world.
3. I do think normal language is better to communicate with computer, because it makes the communication easier and available to use by wider amount of people, also those who are not familiar with the computer at all. That would change their approach to new technologies, that would also give them possibility to communicate with people living in other countries, continents.
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot. How can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteSometimes chat with a bot is fun. But at the moment when I ask for a support question on chat, for example. Where can I find something, or when something ... Then I can not distinguish, bot from a man. The problem starts when the conversation is extended.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
For me, real emotions are visible only during my face-to-face conversation.
3. Do you think that the natural language is more interactive than a limited set of commands? Why?
The natural language is better because it is - natural :) but when communicating with the machine sometimes we need 100% understanding, then I prefer to use only a limited number of commands.
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion chatbots are capable of faking real conversations. Such a chatbot can conduct a discussion and propose new topics, asking first. People don't always communicate in a really sophisticated way so it should not be so difficult.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
I think I wouldn't be emotionally attached to it. It has no personality and I don't think that I would repeat the scenario from 'Her'.
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
Well, for humans it is natural to communicate in this way. We are not always precise and don't know exactly how to define what we mean.
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteAt the moment I think that they are not handling this well.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
Accurate is not enough. We always say about people that they act like robots when they “accurate” type of person.
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
Yes, cause it is more natural for us 😊 We do not need to make any other actions but still our voice interfaces are not good enough
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteI think that depends on a chatbot and the topic of the conversation. Also the experience of the user may play a role (e.g. IT specialist or senior that even does not know about the existence of chatbots). In my opinion the reality of the conversation is less important than the effectiveness of the conversation. I prefer to get the answers for my questions fast and understandable, even if the conversation is unnatural.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
I doubt. I think I am not the person that gets involved that much in virtual world.
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
Again, I think it depends on the aim of the interaction. For the home use, it could be a better way, especially for the people not very familiar with the computers, but I cannot imagine using natural language in programming or creating computer graphics.
1.The Chatbot will always implement a certain logical system (not necessarily correct but it will be implemented consistently) - people won’t perform this kind of action.
ReplyDelete2. For me it is irrational.
3. It depends on the situation - the natural language is better in situations requiring less precision. The command language is more precise, unambiguous and associated with a specific logical system, which is better in engineering solutions
1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteThey can be easily confused. Microsoft tried something like that with twitter. Just take a look at this article: https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/24/microsoft-silences-its-new-a-i-bot-tay-after-twitter-users-teach-it-racism/
They have failed badly.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
I don't think so. However, if you take a look at this: http://metro.co.uk/2010/03/09/man-marries-pillow-154906/
Then my answer is, someone will for sure.
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
It's easier, not better. With a set of commands we can't be misinterpreted.
It's sad that to prove machine intelligence we are forced to return to sitcoms and learn by heart dialogs. Few years before I have pleasure to talk to some chatbot and with my support this chat bot could handle long and logical conversation. I even start wonder if this chatbot is a real person who connect to some of people on the web page where this chatbot was presented. I believe in future we are going to have possibility to talk lot of different chatbots in online shopping. This is going to be very soon. And I don't believe even against the future trend that I'm going to emotionally connect to some of this artificial intelligence. It might be similar to computer game chatting with virtual assistant. To be honest I would like to consult my shopping with bot that are not going to watch too much tv.
ReplyDelete1. It's difficult to measure the accuracy of a chatbot as a single question can have many good answers. How well in your opinion can modern chatbots fake a real conversation?
ReplyDeleteI would use as a measure if you can notice that you communicate with not human. I think it's a very long way to achieve this level. The main difficulty in my opinion will be with language development. It is hard task to learn computer how to understand new word from context.
2. Assuming that a chatbot is accurate, do you think you could become emotionally attached to it?
I can't imagine emotional bond with a software.
3. Do you think that natural language is a better way to interact with a computer than a limited set of commands? Why?
It is the direction in which most of software is heading. Everything is simplified. Even statistical analysis can be made without deep understanding of mathematical relationships. Iteracting with computer by natural language shoud make usage much simpler for no advanced users.