Talk to Birkoff or his moody twin Birky.
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A virtual character or a chatterbot is a program that simulates an allegedly intelligent conversation. My project involves creating such characters according to a given model based on an imaginary person from literature, cinema, TV show, etc. It is a research project involving pattern matching, automatic indexing, information retrieval, and evolutionary algorithms.
The programs work best with Netscape or Mozilla.
The original chatterbot named Eliza was published by Joseph Weizenbaum in Communications of the ACM in January 1966. It was simulating a Rogerian psychologist.
My latest chatterbot Birkoff was created using semi-automatic indexing and pattern generation. His database is significantly bigger than the two others and the program is somewhat improved. The character is a computer genius in La Femme Nikita and is originally played by Matthew Ferguson.
The following is my first draft of a virtual personality based on the character of Madeline from the TV show La Femme Nikita (WB), played by Alberta Watson. She was a chief strategist and psychologist, thus the closeness to the original Eliza. You are welcome to have fun with the program, but remember that what you get out of the conversation is little more than what you bring in. Also, don't be to hard on her if she gets boring after some time, it's still version 1.0.
My second chatterbot is inspired from the character of Michael also from La Femme Nikita, played by Roy Dupuis. He is a ruthless, cold, calculated, seductive, and deadly secret operative. His database is about twice as big as Madeline's but in general his character is more cryptic, he doesn't do or say anything unless it's necessary.
