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Name:
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Yazann Romahi
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Age:
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25
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Sex:
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Male
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Town:
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Cambridge
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Country:
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England
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E-mail:
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yr206@cam.ac.uk
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Chatterbots
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Mitbolel
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What gave you the idea of developing a bot?
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At the time, I was wanting to learn Java and the
best way to learn a new language is to give yourself a new
project. I shamefully admit therefore that it was in fact a means to an
end rather than an end in itself.
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Is creating bots a passion for you? A hobby?
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Amusement value I guess. There are several versions I wrote - one
that is implemented as a Java MIRC client and I enjoyed watching
people chat with the bot wanting to see how long it took them to
realise that they were talking to a computer :-)
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When did you start creating bots? Why?
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I guess in a crude sense, my first 'bot' was written on my
Commodore 64 a long time ago! (it was based on Eliza)
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What language is your bot programmed in?
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Java. The reason is that I wanted it to be an applet that people
can embed into their websites seemlessly and without being dogged down by
CGI response rates.
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How much time do you spend working on your bot per week/month/year?
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Couple of days per year - really not much.
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In your opinion, what are the best qualities of your bot?
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Definitely the best quality of the bot is that it runs on
the client-side on web pages. (I get bored very quickly when
talking to a bot that uses CGI). Also, the database is
user-editable and plenty of people on the web have installed versions of
Mitbolel on their own websites complete with their own personalities. I've
even had someone make a German version of it! (and this is without the
need to write a single line of code).
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What is your ultimate goal for your bot?
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I initially started writing it with the intension of embedding
a financial expert system based on CLIPS into it. I think that
that idea has somehow faded into the background.
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How do you see chatterbots being used in the future?
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Virtual malls, with virtual sales reps and virtual customers - the
virtual agents seemlessly blend in with the real ones.
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Can chatterbots replace humans?
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It depends what you mean. They can certainly replace certain
tasks that humans do.
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What is your favorite bot memory?
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Watching people on IRC talk to the bot :-)
thinking that Mitbolel was just a really stupid and/or abnoxious
person.
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