[Randy]

Hi everyone,

This is my first post on this site although some here might have seen me on other forums dealing with A.I. from time to time. My name is Randy.

I've been working on a project off-and-on for about two years I call 'Alexis'. I had thought about AIML, dabbled with Verbots, I've even written a part of Athena in the beginning before work had taken over my life. I quit that job and got another one last year and was able to start again only to be laid-off about eight months ago leaving me unemployed. During this time I've tried to get a job, earn money by doing odd jobs, and a go-for-broke web development project. If it works my financial troubles will be over. If not, well, I'm no worse off.

Anyway, this has left me some time to get back to work on Alexis. A year ago I rewrote the project in PowerBASIC and am looking at interfacing with Haptek's player. Right now it is all MS Agent but I think Haptek's technology will provide a more complete interface.

The goals I had were to have an automated home, voice activated and at the same time a kind of companion. I'm divorced and my last child left home a few months ago so I've got a large empty house. I've written a small scripting language and everything is database driven. I've interfaced it with some X-10 technology I bought last year, have some success with voice recognition although I really need to train my voice better and at some point (when finances permit) get a newer version of Dragon's Naturally Speaking or some other software.

So that's where I'm at, looking at Haptek and I can use all the pointers I can get. I figure the people here have the most experience with it so I humble myself before the lords and ladies of superior knowledge. Teach me. Fill my empty head with knowledge. And above all... have a wonderful, happy new year!

Randy

[wgb14]

Hi

I have done extensive work with Haptek tehcnology (and extend it in several ways). Check out my blog at http://virtual-guide-systems.blogspot.com/. Thei API is easy as 123 all you need is the SDK from their website (or the help file I am attaching to the post). But if you have good programming skills I would recommend to also check the ogre3d engine. Haptek is propably dead and only compatible with windows XP.   

[Maviarab]

Welcome to the site Randy.

Do not be too disheartened at the peace and quiet here, its always very quiet around this time of year hehe.

Look forward to hearing more

[Randy]

Thanks Maviarab and Wgb14,

I saw that Haptek was getting a bit long in the tooth, and I can (and have) programmed 3D games, animated, created my own characters and so-on. I've just never tried mapping visems and animating those and figured that if others had done the work in that area why not just take that and interface it with what I'm doing?

I'll check out the site and I do appreciate any advice. I'll also look into Ogre. And yes, I'm pretty good at programming. I've been doing it since I was a teenager and the first TRS-80 Model I with 4k of memory and Level I basic came out. It's been my hobby and career.

Maviarab, I kind of like the quiet. It's easier to make a post, go back to what I was doing and check back in a few hours or a day and see if anyone has replied.

Speaking of what I'm going to do today, take apart an old computer and see if I can upgrade it with spare parts I have laying about and move Alexis over to it... either that or set up my VR lab. I have the equipment. Eventually Alexis will be in a virtual reality world that she can explore, go shopping, whatever when she's not interacting with me. The idea is to kind of give her a life, a feeling that she is more than just a program but truly autonomous. But that's further down the road. Right now, it's the brain and the home interface as well as something beyond MS Agent.

Thanks again and I'll keep you posted.

Randy

[Freddy]

Welcome to the site Randy, yes I have seen you before I am sure, just not sure where !

Your work sounds really interesting, I hope you enjoy the ideas and company here.

As for Haptek, I used to do a lot with it, but have pretty much given up on it myself, but I can still see it is useful - I just wish they would develop it more, because they were onto a good thing there at one time.

Regards

P.S. Yes Maviarab is right, things are quiet round here at the moment, but it usually picks up after the holiday periods.

[Randy]

Hi Freddy,

I'm sure we've probably crossed paths a time or two but may have never formally been introduced. So, consider this an introduction.

Alexis stands for Artificial Learning Experimental Intelligence System since she is a mixture of many things. I had thought of all sorts of technologies but couldn't quite find exactly what I'm looking for. In fact, I'm not sure what exactly it is. It's just that I'm a computer programmer by profession and it's my hobby. My job used to be to take the impossible and find a way to make it happen. Well, more or less I suppose.

What I have in mind is to have Alexis carry on a conversation while I'm cooking, or after giving me a recipe for a mixed drink to tell me a lame bartender's joke. Maybe to kid around with me at times but when I ask for the temperature outside, she will do just that -- no joking around. I want her to know when to be serious with me and take a command and when to converse.

I also have in mind some humanity but she'll know she's a computer. Still, in her virtual world she will have virtual groceries, virtual house, and whatever else I come up with so when I ask her how her day was, she will actually have had a busy day doing whatever she does.

Yes, it's going to be a long process but it's going to be a lot of fun.

Haptek is an old technology and probably won't work with the whole 3D world thing. However, it will do for the next step until I start designing 3D... actually, I just came up with an idea. Heading downstairs, I may have an animated female model that will work for the VR world and put me a step in the right direction.

Back after while.

Randy

[Freddy]

Yes I am pretty confident I have seen you on a forum maybe or you were mentioned somewhere I have visited... good to meet you properly now

Alexis sounds like the ideal AI, that is the kind of 'companion' I would like too.  I'm not really well versed in AI programming, I would probably class myself more as an enthusiast at the current time.  I do a fair bit of programming, mostly PHP at the moment as I am working on becoming a website designer/programmer.

In the distant past I studied C and for a long time I have been trying to find the time to learn C++ as I forgot just about everything I knew about C.  A few years back I did a lot of sketching out of ideas for an AI, or more accurately an advanced chat bot. I lost my way on that though as I really need to learn more about Natural Language Processing.  Oh well, it can sit on one of my many back burners.

Other than that I have played around with Visual Basic, although if I did start work on some kind of AI I would probably go for C++ and kill two birds with one stone - meaning it would be a good learning exercise as well as building my own AI.  And I also played around with various avatar systems.

For the most recent past I have been more interested in the theory side; the pro's and con's and ideas about what an AI actually is.  It's good to separate fact from fiction, but at times with this subject that seems difficult as everyone wants to build the kind of things we have only read about !

We have a great group of members here all with areas of expertise, so it's great to welcome you here.  Have fun

[Art]

Randy,

Welcome aboard! It's always nice to have a new member.

I'd rather have a bot that become the central hub or brain of the house much like S.A.R.A.H. on the TV show,
Eureka. It knew lots of various things around the house and could control them. The human would still have over ride ability in case of changes or a mishap. The concept still appeals to me.

Who knows...the future is full of surprises waiting to happen.

[lrh9]

Welcome! Good luck with your projects, but good luck getting your finances in order first. I know what it is like to be a down on his luck a.i. researcher.

Our interests in a.i. differ somewhat, but maybe reading some of my posts will be interesting to you.

This site also has articles which might interest you.

http://aidreams.co.uk/forum/index.php?page=105

[Randy]

Hi Art and Irh9,

It's funny that I've never watched the show "Eureka" because it is actually my style from what I've seen in the previews. Still, S.A.R.A.H. seems similar to what I'd like to do although my inspiration came from Peter Plantec's book "Virtual Humans".

Irh9: I've still got a ways to go and it's going to get a little further behind. I'm kind of rescuing a family who is being thrown out on the street. My brother knows them and knows that I have the space although not the income. Anyway, they were both laid-off a while back and finally hit rock bottom when the bank decided it was time to foreclose. The move is actually happening right now as they are packing and I'm trying to get the downstairs in order.

One day, this nightmare will be over and I'll be back to putting more pieces of Alexis in place. Right now all I can do is the programming... until the electric company decides to cut the power lines in which case I'll have to resort to my Bat Atomic Pile in my secret Batcave (which isn't so secret now that I've blurted it out.)

Irh9, I'm going to look at the link you sent right now for a little bit and then quit procrastinating and finish the downstairs.

Randy