Forum Bot, but this time, on our side.

palmertech · Post by **palmertech** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:53 pm

I have noticed a LOT of bots on the forum recently, some of them actually seeming to know what parts of the forum to post in.

It got me thinking: How about a bot that scans the forums, and tries to make intelligent replies and join the conversation? I have a rough start made using some .aiml tables from the ALICE project, along with self-adaptive vocabulary modification. In theory, once unleashed, it would read just one forum (Probably limit it to here in 42) and attempt to make coherent posts. By seeing how people respond, and what gets good responses (Shown by keywords like "good", "hilarious", "thanks", "epic win", etc, etc.). Over time, it should develop a reasonably intelligent "brain".

Does anybody here like this idea? Furthermore, for the admins: Would I be allowed to run it? I could cap its daily post count to something really low if needed. I can make it run from my computer, but would prefer to make some phpbb2 code that you could install (So it could always be aware, and to make sure that I would be unable to tamper with its posts).

Just wanted to get an interest/approval check before spending a lot of time working it out. If anybody is interested, I could manually copy/paste threads into a file for it to read, and post replys for it. (Just in this thread, to see how it works).

Thoughts?

Just wonde

grossaffe · Post by **grossaffe** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 1:01 am

http://philipscheel.net/facepalm.jpg

Edit by mod: image is too large for embedding.

project_failure · Post by **project_failure** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:12 am

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:21 am

Scary thing is that it might appear more intelligent than some comments here

Make sure the database is big otherwise it will get repetitive and boring.

Could be interesting to fool it to give a stupid reply!

Sounds interesting, as long as the posting is just a few a day, no more.

How about, just for fun, not give your bot access to a forum section but just a specific new topic set up for your bot, so we can post things and see how it responds? It could reply automatically after each posting that way. Could be interesting.

Metallica Man X · Post by **Metallica Man X** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:29 am

It'd be like chatting with that santa-bot....only slower, lol.

khaag · Post by **khaag** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 6:52 am

Well I think it would be a neat experiment. Useless, but fun.

Neildo_64 · Post by **Neildo_64** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:03 am

Wouldnt it be funny if there was a problem with it and it started randomly posting everywhere every 10 seconds and we got about 8000 posts of spam EVERYWHERE?! Yeah, that would suck....Go for it!

Kyo · Post by **Kyo** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:54 am

been there, tried that, got bored of it, quit.

I wanted to make a bot that would base answers to thread on other posts in the thread, but i got bored of it and decided it was a stupid idea

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:02 pm

I was expecting you to come up with a really intelligent and sensible idea, like "Make a bot that scans for bot posts and deletes the topics."

We should do that, too.

But I enjoy the idea of ONE bot, just for kicks, that makes occasional posts in topics. It could make some topics 500 times funnier.

ghosstt · Post by **ghosstt** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:47 pm

I agree with kurt. This seems like a great idea, and could really add some fun to some of these posts.

+1 from me.

SonyPortableizer · Post by **SonyPortableizer** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 2:55 pm

Sounds like one of those movies with a thing where it goes bad and goes against humans(I.E. HAL)
Do I really need to say what movie HAL goes with?

nightwheel · Post by **nightwheel** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:34 pm

SonyPortableizer wrote:Sounds like one of those movies with a thing where it goes bad and goes against humans(I.E. HAL)
Do I really need to say what movie HAL goes with?

the bot could be easily removed or shut down if something like that happened

palmertech · Post by **palmertech** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 4:49 pm

nightwheel wrote:
SonyPortableizer wrote:Sounds like one of those movies with a thing where it goes bad and goes against humans(I.E. HAL)
Do I really need to say what movie HAL goes with?
the bot could be easily removed or shut down if something like that happened

*mumbles about self-adaptive code that is designed to take over the forums*

What? Oh, yeah, of course...

@Kurt: I was thinking that, but giving mod permissions to this (And allowing them to be used) would not be wise.

Most likely, it would be fine, but if someone posted a, say, price list for various portable parts, it would get locked.

@facepalms: Go away.

@Bacteria: It has a vocabulary of over 90,000 words, it should be fine.

Here is my idea: As a test, and to see how quickly it learns, I set up a topic and route the text into the bot, then have it post there. Perhaps if it is entertaining enough, it could be voted on if it should expand to other threads, or not. Probably cap its posts to under 10 a day, 3-5 would probably be about right.

Something to consider: It would be much more effective actually responding to real topics, rather than a topic set up to make fun of it and mess with it. The test topic should pretend to be normal, but if you want to comment on what it says (Beyond actual discussion) post it here. I am going to try and allow us to train it by saying "good post" for good stuff, and "Bad post "Words it should have said instead" ". Maybe leaving out the last part, people could really mess with it.

Still waiting for admin approval. Sparkfist, Ben, or Gannon, respond please! (BTW, I know one of them hates me, as they changed my sig during a long hiatus to say that I was a lying retard that lives with my mom.)

Mario · Post by **Mario** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:27 pm

Sounds like fun. Here are my suggestions:

If you limit the post count, people will be making posts just in hope that
Alice will reply. (Yes, I'm calling it Alice. Just stay with me.) When only
3-5 people get replies, the rest are sad. Also, this can lead to spammish
posts, with specific phrases just to make Alice say certain things. We
can't have it posting just anywhere, which brings me to my next point...

Make a new forum/topic that Alice can post in. It needs its own forum or
topic, partially because of the above post. When Alice only makes 3-5
posts, people will be bugging you to raise the post count, because "their
post didn't get a comment", or some stuff like that.

Make a new topic in Forum 42, sticky it, and let people ask Alice
stuff/direct it to their topics via links. Alice will only be allowed to post
only in its own topic and the direct topic links posted therein. DO NOT let
it travel to links in the linked topics.

PLEASE tell people beforehand that Alice will not respond to sexual
comments. If you don't you may get some...undesirable...posts.

Make Alice respond to its name.

Let it look around the forums and "read" everything. It will gain a larger vocabulary faster this way.

Sounds like lots of fun. I'd love to see this carried out.

palmertech · Post by **palmertech** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 7:41 pm

Mostly good ideas, except for one thing: Limiting it to just one topic. It would be fun to have it actually reply to real topics.

For a while though, to get it started, probably good to keep it to one topic. It should be unleashed eventually, though.