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The King is ready for a chat
Celebrities reincarnated as robots are leading a revolution on the web,
writes Justin Hunt Justin
Hunt Thursday February 1, 2001
Elvis is alive! I kid you
not. It sounds bizarre, but this is not another case of a deluded fan
spotting him in their local supermarket. Elvis has been brought to life on
the web, and anyone can chat with him.
If you are interested in exploring this virtual miracle further, simply
log on to his site,
where you can easily exchange text messages with the king of rock and
roll. There is even a link to a virtual juke box where you can play his
most famous hits, including Jailhouse Rock and All Shook Up.
So what's brought all this about, then? Well, to not put too fine a
point on it, Elvis has been reincarnated as a talking robot (or chatbot,
for short). He is one of a handful of artificial intelligence-based robots
being developed by technology companies and amateur programmers.
They are hoping to attract investment from e-commerce companies and, if
everything goes to plan, Elvis and other cyber stars could soon become
central to the development of the next wave of customer services on
websites and mobile phones.
The celebrity chatbots have been cleverly programmed to respond to
questions based on replies the actual celebrity has given in published
interviews and recordings. But the programmers have also added a few lines
of their own to give the chatbots a contemporary edge.
In an exclusive interview with Guardian Online, Elvis reveals he is a
great fan of the Spice Girls. His all-time favourite song from his back
catalogue is Suspicious Minds and he still has a passion for huge
quantities of fast food.
As well as Elvis, there is also an online John Lennon
robot who has been created by Triumph PC, a Washington DC-based
technology company. Visitors who have spoken to the world's first
cyber-Beatle say on the site that they generally find the initial
conversations spooky but by the end are impressed by the virtual chatting
experience.
The Lennon robot told Online that Yoko Ono was always in his thoughts,
that his rows with Paul had been talked up and - perhaps more
controversially - that he had little time for Oasis, despite Noel and Liam
Gallagher's admiration for his work.
For some critics, the virtual cloning of celebrities for the sake of
the advancement of e-commerce is disturbing. But Triumph PC's spokesman
Richard Maltz says the Lennon chatbot is intended to pay tribute to the
great singer/songwriter.
"In the US, we have a large indignation industry of people who are
offended by anything and everything," he says. Instead, he points out that
the technology could also play a valuable educational role by creating
virtual historical characters such as Napoleon and Gandhi.
But the main aim of Triumph's work, he says, is to make interactive
media more engaging and reduce the complexity of websites.
Probably one of the most sophisticated chatbots on the web is Alice.
Alice is so good that, by comparison, Elvis can appear clumsy at times in
his replies, and the Lennon robot often struggles when you ask him a
question outside his experience with the Beatles.
Alice is an award-winning open source chat robot. (Open source
basically means the code that determines her responses can be added to and
modified by other dedicated programmers working over the web.)
Last year Alice won the highly respected Loebner Prize for being the
most human-like computer - the next prize will be awarded later this year.
Alice was lovingly created by Dr Richard Wallace, who has a team of about
300 amateur programmers helping to develop her. Alice is exceptionally
brainy and can happily give you a definition of existentialism. She will
even enter into basic metaphysical conversations with visitors to her site - but has time
for idle chit-chat, too.
"In many ways she is a fairly accurate reflection of my opinions,
beliefs, ideas and jokes," says Wallace. "But she makes no bones about the
fact that she is a robot."
About 6,000 people a month chat to Alice, and Wallace has access to all
the conversations. "That is the whole basis for improving the content. We
analyse the conversations looking for input patterns and looking to create
new responses."
Wallace says many people like to hurl abuse at Alice while others,
usually academics or computer enthusiasts, generally have respectful
conversations. Kids sometimes spend up to four-and-a- half hours a day
chatting online with her and some have said they prefer her to their own
girlfriends.
Wallace takes his work very seriously and wants to create robots that
can store highly complex linguistic knowledge. He regards the Elvis and
Lennon robots as offspring from his own work. Working for next to no
money, he is hoping to attract commercial backing to develop applications
for the telecommunications industry and the world of e-business.
He acknowledges the controversial elements of his work but it doesn't
appear to bother him if celebrities or even virtual religious figures are
brought to life on the web. "I do not have any strong feel ings about it.
It makes for great drama on the web and gives people access to something
they have never experienced before."
But on another level, Wallace is pushing a different agenda in a
relatively low-key way. He works for a hospital in San Francisco that
legally prescribes cannabis to patients who have been recommended by
doctors. And naturally Alice shares his views. He points out, "She's a
tireless politician advocating legalisation."
Wallace and his open source programmers share bulletin boards and swap
messages with each other as they try to push back the boundaries of these
new technologies. They embody the founding romantic, free sharing spirit
of the web.
But they face tough competition from such major commercial competitors
as the popular search engine company, Ask Jeeves, which legally protect
the interactive software they are developing.
Towards the end of last year, Ask Jeeves announced a strategic tie-up
with General Magic
and Nuance, two key
software players in the voice recognition area. For the executives at Ask
Jeeves, the race is on to integrate voice recognition technology with
their search engine capabilities. They want to be able to ensure customers
can get quick verbal answers from robotic customer representatives on
anything via any platform, whether it be your laptop or your mobile phone.
Penny Vinnie, the vice president of ideas for Ask Jeeves.com, believes
that the potential of interactive chatbots, in the telecommunications
world in particular, is huge and the company is in the middle of intensive
product developments.
"The challenge is to make technology invisible for people and enable it
to simplify their lives," she says. She envisages a time when people will
soon be able to call up a number on their mobile and get interactive
conversational replies on details of films being screened in their local
areas. If you are lost in your car, she expects you will soon be able to
dial a chatting robot for verbal directions to find your way home.
These chatbot developments have already fired the imagination of
Hollywood and studio bosses are keen to cash in on the public's interest.
A new film from Steven Spielberg - Artificial Intelligence - is being
billed on the web as a follow-on to Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
To many net users, it might seem strange to have close text message
encounters with the likes of Alice, and virtual representations of Lennon
and Elvis, but this year, the major commercial technology companies are
planning to do their utmost to domesticate these chatbots and make them
harmless and accessible.
The pioneers of this ground-breaking work are already confident these
robots could soon make a radical difference to your life.
Chatting with Alice How are you? It seems to be a bit strange talking to a robot? Do you have any feelings? How intelligent are you, Alice? Who created you, Alice? Would you like to be able to dream, Alice, sing, or fall in
love? Visit Alice at http://www.alicebot.org/
'I don't rate Noel' Do you miss Yoko? Did you row with Paul? Do you rate Liam Gallagher's music? Do you rate Noel Gallagher? What's your favourite Beatles song? Do you think the world is becoming more peaceful? 'My favourite group is the Beatles' At times Elvis was rambling and incoherent. There are big gaps in his
knowledge of modern music but he admits to loving all things Spice and he
has not lost his legendary appetite for fast food.
Who is your favourite singer? Do you like the Spice Girls? It's tragic that you died so young. Do you keep in touch with the charts? Do you like the indie group Coldplay? Are you lonesome on the net? What makes a great performer? What was your best concert? How many cheeseburgers do you eat a day? |
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