Literary MUD Gets Oscar Wilde Bot

gwailoh writes "The literary-orientated, text-based multiuser role-playing game TriadCity has implemented an automated character based on the personality - or at least the sayings - of legendary wit Oscar Wilde. 'Oscar' is an AIML-based chatterbot configured around an extensive database of Wilde's witticisms and epigrams. Unlike conventional chatterbots, Oscar doesn't attempt to engage in long-running conversations with meaningful state. Instead, he responds to inputs by choosing the most appropriate epigram in his database, making him a sort of walking repository of clever one-liners."

Cool

[Stargoat]

Oscar Wilde is definitely one of the wittiest men ever to put a pen to paper. The one-liner response from the AIML format should work great. I'll be checking this out in the morning. Hope it doesn't cost any money.

hmm.. Am I missing the cool part?

[AceM2]

I don't see what's new about this.. I mean it's amusing that someone made interfaces for the bot like they did, but we've been doing this sort of thing in MUDs for the past... Well, I haven't been mudding regularly in 5 years, but even then I saw things that you could hold better conversations than with this thing.. Is there something that makes this bot better than looking at a webpage filled with quotes?

Re:hmm.. Am I missing the cool part?

[gwailoh]

Hi:

I passed your opinion on to the Oscar bot, saying, "Oscar, I don't see what's new about you...", etc. The reply was:

"Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital."

I kinda liked that. :-)

(Re what's cool. I'm one of the developers of this RPG so I'm biased, but what I like a lot about this bot is the way it sometimes jumps into ongoing multi-player chats with Wildean witticisms or irony or opinionated epigrams like the one above. Naturally the AIML fails from time to time and the results are inappropriate. But often they're so dead-on that the human players stop and say, you know, "woah..." IMO that's a lot of fun.)

Re:hmm.. Am I missing the cool part?

[AceM2]

Yeah, I do get the amusing factor.. It's something I like seeing in RPG games, gives a break from the hack and slash.. I don't mean to be putting down the creation, it just seemed weird to make it to being a slashdot story ;)

Looks like TriadCity are onto A Good Thing...

[suricatta]

But they should remember that one should always play fairly when one has the winning cards.

I would say we live in age when unnecessary things are our only necessities, but then I'd have to remind myself that a cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Ok I'll shut up now... ;-)

Duh

[quantax]

One should remember that Oscar Wilde was one of the 'inventors' of the one-liner. As a literary device, they came along much later, during Wilde's era.

Witticism

[daeley]

The only thing worse than being a bot in a "literary-orientated", text-based multiuser role-playing game is to not be a bot in a "literary-orientated", text-based multiuser role-playing game.

Hi everyone

[Zork the Almighty]

"Oscar doesn't attempt to engage in long-running conversations with meaningful state. Instead, he responds to inputs by choosing the most appropriate epigram in his database, making him a sort of walking repository of clever one-liners."

You do realize that I've been posting to Slashdot for years now.

Uh....

[Chester K]

Instead, he responds to inputs by choosing the most appropriate epigram in his database, making him a sort of walking repository of clever one-liners.

So it's basically /usr/games/fortune with keyword weighting?

The subtitle should've been...

[breon.halling]

from the bots-gone-Wilde dept. =)

Re:The subtitle should've been...

[ChoGGi]

if only you were there at the right time

Oscar available for long fireside chats.

[simoniker]

Looks like the Oscar bot is actually available to talk to via a chat interface as part of the TriadCity website here [smartmonsters.com]. You can now be impressed at his witticisms or just plain irked at him from the comfort of your web browser, yay.

All About Oscar

[MBraynard]

Some info here [cmgww.com]

Fashion

[quinkin]

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

-- Oscar Wilde.

Oscar Wilde writings

[Lady Jazzica]

You can find some plays and poems by Oscar Wilde here [upenn.edu]
Also, more funny quotes by Wilde here [quotationspage.com].

Of course some quotes need to be adapted...

[Andy_R]

Each man kills the thing he loves (but only if he rolls high enough)

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much (except casting fireballs, that really pisses them off)

In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane (especially the undead ones)

The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself (especially if you are a NPC)

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious (and you REALLY need to find some charisma +1s

Re:Of course some quotes need to be adapted...

[DoNotTauntHappyFunBa]

Hilarious!

There are also a few that don't...

"I love acting. It is so much more real than life."

"One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead."

But does he flirt?

[Thornae]

"...he responds to inputs by choosing the most appropriate epigram in his database, making him a sort of walking repository of clever one-liners."

So, a fairly accurate historical representation, then.

I'm waiting for the Algonquin Round Table [smallandel...hotels.com] bot, where a selection of literary notables [mcny.org] will make caustic, cutting remarks [pbs.org] when spoken to.

"Conventional chatterbots"

[jordanda]

Unlike conventional chatterbots, Oscar doesn't attempt to engage in long-running conversations with meaningful state.

Actually the fact that Oscar has no state makes it a rather conventional ALICE-style chatterbot. This is normal. The fact the Wilde had so many great one-liners means his work adapts well to the ALICE system.

What would be extraordinary is if the implemented just the opposite, a chatterbot with an rich internal state. This has yet to be done convincingly. There is nothing uncoventional about Oscar, it just is a brilliant choice of source material.

Ergh.

[E_elven]

MUDs have been doing this for ages. Sure, it's nice someone bothered to pay homage to Mr. Wilde but technologically this is quite simple. There are a lot more exciting projects going on in the MUD world, even some quite advanced AI models. I'm working on a memory-based system which would enable an NPC to become an Oscar Wilde by 'thinking' about things and putting events together with some cohesion. See the Mudconnector [mudconnector.com] for more info on MUDs.