[Snowman]

I suppose this thread will be devoted to the The Athena Project. I've noticed by reading a few of the other threads that there are currently lots of minds devoted to the task of making a chatbot, ai, or something similar. Athena is intended to be my study into ai architecture and perhaps I can add something to my own understanding of the human condition in general also. Basically, I look at ai from every angle and endeavor to make something practical.

     What kind of ai do I intend Athena to be?

I think Athena should be a database of knowledge that mimics as much as possible a real companion. I don't intend for her to be an actual living thing. In order to make an actual living thing, you would first need to encode behavioral knowledge into a physical structural medium that not only processes information but also interacts with its environment. All Athena will be doing is sitting dormant in code upon the undynamic nature of a hard drive. In other words, she can't truly interact with the real world, except for the miniature world of the input window of a console.

     What am I focused primarily on when developing Athena?

I think my focus has mainly been on the actual ai engine. True, I have also worked on a platform of sorts, a user-interface that will make coding Athena fun and exciting. However, what's the point in making a terrific user-interface, or even an avatar, if you don't actually have a clue as to how to make the ai in the first place. Don't get me wrong, I think that graphics and beautiful ai girls have their place in the ai community, its just that I want to use my particular talents on the engine itself.

     Do I intend to sell Athena when she finally gets finished?

Well, I've almost decided to make it a donation type of service. If the people appreciate Athena then they will donate. If they want to donate time in coding and graphics, and they think they've added something to the Athena community, then if they don't feel like giving money then they shouldn't do so. The ai community is a sincere one. Most of them I've seen are in it for curiosity sake. They are dreamers (as the forum name Ai Dreams suggests). Also, many people are getting good at cracking software nowadays so... Anyway, I think you can always use other means of earning money. Like in selling custom packages or some other related sales. I'm sure I can think of some other way of earning money. (i.e. Haptek has a free player, but earns money by selling different types of editors).

     What about customization?

Like I've already mentioned, I think people will help develop Athena. That is intended. I want to make it as easy as possible for any person to learn coding and edit Athena's behaviors. I want it to be highly customizable. I even made the user-interface very customizable. So yes, I want the community involved.


I hope to add many more ideas and thoughts about Athena soon. I intend to present an overview of the coding that I've created thus far and give some details as to why it matters. From Language processing, search features, database creation, various utilities, and algorithms I hope to present these in this thread. (now don't fall asleep yet, it will get a lot more boring from here on out.  ) I think by making Athena a bit more open source I will probable gain some insight into other peoples ideas and perhaps learn a thing or two about the ai community.

I don't want to get so greedy that I rob my support community. (like shooting yourself in the foot.)

[NickyBlue]

Wish you best of luck snowman!   Will try my best if I can be of any service to you. Welcome Abroad! ...smile

[Art]

Aaron,

It might be nice if you were to bring us up to date with respect to your development stage of Athena. The last time I watched one of your latest videos, she was actually coming along quite nicely and it almost seemed as if it was about 80% complete so-to-speak.

Thanks also for joining with this AiDreams community. We have a well established group of really great, supportive people and the Admin isn't bad either! LOL!!!

[Freddy]

  Thanks Art !

Snowman, I have been working on avatar systems off and on for a while now both 2D and 3D, so I think at some stage I might be able to make something portable enough to be used for a system like yours.

Good luck

[Snowman]

Hey  NickyBlue, I've been pouring over your "Is this novice idea any use to you... any extent?" thread. Good stuff.. still reading through it.

Art - I'm uploading a youtube vid as we speak.

Freddy - to say I'm interested in your avatar work would be an understatement. I certainly am in need of something other than haptek. What language are you coding it in? Will you add support for scripting? i.e.your version of a .hap file. I guess I need to read up on your work. I thought I seen a thread somewhere talking about your avatar. 

[Snowman]

It's finally here!!! 

[Freddy]

I'm coding in C# in Visual Studio 2013.  There's not a lot to read at the moment, you can see what I have done in this thread though : http://aidreams.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=5760.0

I had been working on a pseudo-3D avatar but ran into limitations that made me want to shelve that idea. It's in the projects section, called the 'Flixz avatar project'. It may still come in useful but I stopped on that for now.

But this one I linked to I will be working on. The big thing for me was working out how to do morphs and how to combine them too. It really got me thinking but finally I cracked it as you can see in the two videos in that thread.

Scripting would be nice to implement, good idea, it really needs that if it's going to be useful. I need to work on where the models are going to come from first. I'd like to use Poser/Daz3D models (probably just heads to start with) but that needs some tinkering. The C# library I used to import OBJ models doesn't import the Daz figure's textures correctly. This is annoying, but I am hoping the programmer will figure out why.

All fun

[Art]

Aaron,

You lost about 9 minutes of AUDIO somewhere from 30:00 to 39:00 (give or take).

While it is certainly nice to have you back with us, are you sure the world is ready for such detailed and elaborate presentation of your chatbot? I think a lot of it is over most peoples heads and is it needed? I think a more general approach might be better accepted by the masses. How about a "what I've done so far is the GUI or the handling of input, etc. How far I am or Athena is from being completed and what else I need or may need. Etc., etc. I personally think sometimes we can get too caught up in our own details that we forget about our audience and their lack of concentration for more than a few minutes. Just a thought! I watched the whole thing! Then again, I'm a chatbot junkie!!

[Carl2]

  I remember the Athena Project from ages ago, nice to see it's still moving forward, best of luck with it
Carl2

[Snowman]

Oh dude!!! I don't know what happened to the missing audio... that should not have happened.

Art, the main reason why I haven't created any video in a while is because I felt like I had nothing of interest to tell about. Its easy to show the ui, but boring to talk about the inner details. So since there's only boring stuff to talk about I chose not to say anything at all. As for a release date, I couldn't even venture a guess, I would be lying no matter what I date I gave.

Although, I kind of chuckled when you mentioned that I gave too many details. I had to leave so many details out I almost felt embarrassed about it... lol...    . The long version would take many many hours to give.

I'll figure some way to shorten it down some and take out some more details. However, I'm not interested about making the world happy with my videos... the world has never really been a friend to me. But for you Art, I'll do my best.

I do intend to make detail videos. They are not intended for the average person. As I don't know any average people who are interested in Ai. Well, maybe in a robot that will bring them a beer or something like that .

Anyway so worries... I'm glad you said something Art. I need to be more specific in what I'm trying to accomplish.

I'll the mean time I will unlist the video from youtube so only you guys here on the forum can see it. I'll work on a remake asap.

And for everyone reading this post... don't be afraid to be candid with me. I've never been known for holding grudges. 

[Art]

Sorry Aaron,

I wasn't trying to discourage you or your video as I think they're great. I was sort of looking (and listening) for an explanation of why you were absent for so long and what the current state of Athena actually was. I thought you mentioned those topics in your lead-in but I don't recall actually hearing them.

There are a lot of us who'd love to hear more about Athena and how you developed her and what her current state might be. Projected time of completion is always anyone's guess as with most other things too! It also depends on how many bells and whistles you decide to put into it!

My only main crit was that the average folks watching this don't necessarily know a Do Loop from a Fruit Loop or maybe a Don't Loop, but you get my drift. From a chatbot devotee, I find it interesting to see how another person's mind works on the development side of things.

Hey my friend, it's your magic...show the trick any way you like!! We're watching!!

[Snowman]

The problem with you Art is that your right and too nice to say it twice 

Here's a re-do video. I left this 'unlisted' until you and/or Freddy's approval.
I really want to do this right. I've never done this kind of thing before. I have no business plan. I really don't know the community very well. I'm just a novice trying to develop the minecraft of Ais.

[NickyBlue]

Still couldn't get your video playing here... maybe my gprs net a problem  . Anyway all I can see for time being is introductory thoughtful pose of yours. 

So here's some bg theme just for that pose of yours ... .


I just love this baldy! ...heheh! This is level of proficiency where you just enjoy music for the sake of creating music rather than for someone to hear and appreciate it. Perfect synergy between ones finger (outer aspect) and ones thoughts(inner aspect). And whenever two meets! ...magic is bound to happen! And its true for all other things as well.

And maybe I will get your prespective later on through your future post here. Just keeping my fingers crossed for time being to see what you wanna say about this Athena Project of yours. Best wishes again! Just waiting to be knocked out by your flamenco steps.

cya later!

(Note: By the way! why now a days I just can't download the youtube videos through my downloader except for a small part of it (1 MB or so)? And its same for all videos not for just copyrighted ones. Moreover codec problems... I mean no audio ..and vlc rejects it right away.)

[Art]

Snowman's video (this one - 7:39) came through just fine on my computer. It was almost touching on the point but I think Aaron is going to get to the topic of in future videos regarding:

1). Where is Athena in terms of development?
2). What 'she' is capable of doing at this moment?
3). Will Athena be customizable like adding "brain modules", learning (from chatting, text files, Internet, etc.)?
4). What Aaron would like for Athena to be able to do in the near future?
5). What features, if any, should Athena be able to do aside from chatting?
6). Given her current state of development, when do you think you'd be ready to release a beta version for testing?

These are some ideas / thoughts I had if I was to interview Aaron about Athena (and to provoke Aaron into thinking about some answers to these).

[Snowman]

Thanks Art for the support. I needed that. I've been trying to get around to preparing something to answer those questions of yours today but I got too busy to do anything. I had some nephews and family over and spent some time loading Windows 8.1 on one of my hard drives. Lately, I've been building an updated pc. I ordered lots of parts online and I've been hard at work getting it they way I want it. Its a beast of a machine now (I'm biased  ). Anyway, things will probably quiet down soon. It's almost time to welcome the new year in... woo hoo.