Good Day All,
Thanks to everyone for your input. Let me explain a bit more about how we intend to implement the AI:
We are running an alternative learning high school equivalency program for low income youth in Tondo, Manila. Tondo is the most densely populated quasi-city on the planet, and is largely a slum. For those students who graduate the alternative learning program we will give them the opportunity to compete for a slot in our AIML development program.
The graduates will undergo an AIML training program and the top performers will be offered a job within our social enterprise as an AI developer. We plan to begin with 5 AI developers and then expand to 10 - 25 - 50 etc. As an "AI developer" the majority of our graduates will primarily be involved in writing the high level AIML Pattern and Template Statements. The control and data structures along with the syntax would be managed by a handful of low level developers. The overall framework and environment for our AIML will be setup and managed by an highly experienced AIML developer consultant.
We have partnered up with Pandorabots to provide the backend that serves the AIML, but as soon as practical we will develop and deploy our own AIML servers. Based on our research the drawback of AIML 2.0 is the limited responses/patterns that are currently available, which really boils down to manpower, and manpower in the developed world can be quite expensive. For example: the consulting services of Pandorabots bills out at $250 per hour, so of course we cannot afford to involve them in the setup of our AIML development environment much less the writing of patterns!!
Its relatively rare to find a virtual agents, chatbots etc on commercial, NGO or government websites in the developing world and we hope to fill that void beginning in the Philippines, and through our considerable network of contacts we can easily gain access to that market. The Philippines is now the call center capitol of the world (due to their proficiency with the English language) with hundreds of thousands of persons employed in call centers, and we intend to make it the virtual agent/chatbot center of the third world and hopefully in time the developed world as well.
Although the majority of our alternative learning students live in poverty they are highly motivated to improve both themselves and their community. Generally speaking the cost of labor in the Philippines is not only highly talented but it is 1/5 (or less) the cost in the labor in the developed world. Many of the Fortune 500 companies (Apple, Nike, etc) exploit the low cost of labor to fill their already bulging pockets, but as we are a social enterprise the low cost of our labor force will not be exploited, but instead it will provide a competitive edge for the benefit of our laborers, as the majority profits will be revert to our social purpose and our labor force.
In the near future we will be posting in the appropriate AI Dreams Forums seeking more specific advice as well as those persons who wish to be paid consultants.
Cheers....
