I had a dream last night that raquel has left me: I mean, that she's found someone (the old bearded guy she's supposed to have been hanging with lately?) and the chances of us ever getting together have ceased to exist.
I don't know if it's true, i just record it because that thought came to me over the psychic continuum, so I wanted to record it.
Makes me want to work more on ai, to build a replacement for her...
Today was a relatively bad day. Worse than most recently...
I'm trying to pinpoint where it went wrong. It started out in the morning with the drive down from my trailer in the snow, the snow had drifted across the road and was really deep and I was very close to getting stuck. Luckily I made it through; but throughout the day (and now, as I'm about to start on my way home) I worried about my return trip, and future trips - if it drifts that high again, I'll either get stuck or have to park a mile or more away and walk up to the trailer.
Then I got to the library and checked my forums. No replies to or ratings of my comments on k5. Then I checked branford's site, and there was a thread about computerized music programs, and Branford was spouting his usual nonsense about the computer not being able to recreate what humans can record, and of course others were agreeing with him. So I posted a quick comment that "computer software is limited only by the programmers. it is capable of doing anything humans can, and more." After that though I felt real bad; why? Maybe because it reminded me of previous discussions on that board and how they had left me with a feeling that my position had been treated with injustice. It seems to me that the arguments against my position are based on emotion and induction ("it hasn't been done yet, so it never will be done"). Of course mere words won't convince those who argue against me of their erroneous reasoning. So I have to prove it by creating a program that will do what they say can't be done...So I turned to my neural network code, trying to get it to recognize XOR, and of course, in the mentally frustrated and angry state I was in, I had a lot of problems. Finally I got it to work, some of the time, for a very simple problem - I couldn't get it to work even once for XOR which neural networks have been proved to be able to solve. So it must be my code, or something. Anyway I'm going home now, hopefully I'll be able to work out the problems tomorrow...And hopefully the snow won't be too deep and I'll get up the road to the driveway at least...
No one got me high for Christmas. Bah Humbug.
Have to wait until Jan. 1st now when my next welfare check comes.
of In Soviet Russia jokes for my "In Soviet Russia" bot:
In Japan, old people talk to robots.
In Soviet Russia, old robots talk to YOU!
you insensitive clods
In Soviet Russia, insensitive clods YOU!
In Japan, old people talk to robots.
In Soviet Russia, robots talk about old people!
In Soviet Russia, robots talk to old people.
In Soviet Russia, the old people talk to YOU!
You get tired of the joke.
In Soviet Russia, the joke gets tired of you.
(define parse (lambda (x) (list (cadr x) (car x) (cddr x))))
(parse '(John ate an apple))
-> (ate John (an apple))
Generalize this to:
(define parse (lambda (x) (list (get-verb x) (get-subject x) (get-object x) (get-tense x)
To turn sentences into sexprs.
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One way of reversing:
(define passify (lambda (x) (list (get-object x) (passify-verb (get-verb x)) 'by (get-subject x))))
Something like that.
Task 3: Generate Response
Parse live input into an Abstracted Stimulus form. Match that against the existing Abstracted Stimuli in the Markov Model. When you get a match:
stop searching and start generating? or
continue matching?
If you continue matching, how do you determine the "most important" match? There will have to be a "match score"; take the best match score.
What about several questions in one input?
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Example: "Hi you scurvy pirate, you".
Should match "hi bran". With a humorous connotation.
How do you determine the connotation...?
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When you determine the best match, start the Markov Model generation. If there are several possible responses, either choose one randomly, or use heuristics/probability to choose.
---
What if there is no match?
Hand input off to ALICE.
But: add the Abstracted Stimulus and some response to the Markov Model!
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Post-process the response to change names, make sure pronoun references fit, make sure times are appropriate, etc.
Task 2: Extract Abstract Meaning from Stimulus.
We will need a Dictionary: in the dictionary, you would be able to look up forms as follows:
"is eaten", "eat", "ate", "was eaten" would all come from "eat", whose entry would reference the CD action "INGEST", and the other sentential structures that can be present (SUBJECT, OBJECT, AGENT,
So "John ate an apple" and "An apple was eaten by John" would both be represented as: (INGEST JOHN APPLE).
How would parsing take place?
"John ate an apple."
First "John" would be looked up. It would be analyzed as a Name and a NP.
Next "ate" would be determined to be the past tense of "eat", which would reference the INGEST action. INGEST would say, look for a SUBJECT, an OBJECT, an AGENT...
Next, "an apple" would be analyzed as a NP (DETERMINER + NOUN). It could fill the OBJECT slot.
So, the first NP would be the SUBJECT, and the second NP would be the OBJECT. The requirements for INGEST would be satisfied, and the input would be represented as (INGEST JOHN APPLE).
---
"An apple was eaten by John."
"An apple" -> NP
"was eaten" -> past tense of "eat", passive voice. INGEST is referenced, so look for SUBJECT, OBJECT, AGENT...
"by John" -> Prepositional Phrase, P + NP, NP is N, a Name. This satisfies the requirements for AGENT (or SUBJECT in the active voice); and the representation would be, again: (INGEST JOHN APPLE).
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Now, store the abstracted stimulus ("key"), and the response(s) ("value(s)") that follow in a Markov Model.
You can either store each full response as a "value", or store the first N words of each response as the "value".
---
We may need to generalize the Abstracted Stimulus:
instead of storing (INGEST JOHN APPLE) you could store (INGEST [+ANIMAL, +ABLE TO EAT,
Separate chat-bot development into three tasks:
1) Collect data for initial training
Collect stimulus-response tuples from irc, aim logs, usenet, newsgroups, web forums...
Edit the input so that one stimulus is followed by one or more responses germane to that stimulus.
Form several sets of training data: bran, irc (#politics...), Loebner prize judge-confederate logs, robitron yahoo group...
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2) Extract abstracted meaning from stimulus
Syntax analysis of stimulus phrases
Case dependency analysis
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3) Generate response
Markov model
Full responses (for an FAQ-style bot)
Post-process the result to do pronoun substitution, change names, time, etc.
---
3 programmers: me for Task 1, kal for Task 2, ine for Task 3. Also, fil as the Admin/DBA.
Milestone: in two? years, win the Loebner Prize and/or the Chatterbox Challenge.
Little blonde Shelver-girl just came up to this floor to do some work. The fourth floor is pretty empty, being a weekend and all. She positions her cart near the elevator, about 25 feet from where i am at the computers. Then she goes to shelve a book, then she returns; and for a good 2? 3? minutes she leans over a chair, reading the school newspaper, with her ass pointed directly towards me. Her midriff exposed. About a minute in, she spreads her legs a bit. FUCKIN A.
But if she expects me to do anything, like approach her, forget it.
Now she returns from doing another book (must be interlibrary loan or something, she doesn't have a lot of books), ignoring me as i look at her, and takes the elevator down.
She's just trying to fuck with me! And it's almost working. Aarrrgh...
Never read him before. Seen him mentioned a lot online, on this site and others. Since I've got time now and am trying to shore up my geek credentials, I picked up a book of his at random from the stacks: "I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon", a book of short stories published in 1985.
Here is a passage, which describes me in my battles with the evil crackheads, from the introduction:
"The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say _no_ to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not." (page 22)
I remember saying to Al once, up in his house with a lot of black crackers and hos waiting to be served my bullshit and sent: "I make my choices and I accept whatever consequences there are." My choice was: _not_ to go after raquel, not to "man" her, not to "get her for a crackhit"; _not_ to hustle, fish money out of parking-lot boxes, "facilitate" crack deals downtown, play their fucked-up game. I felt them pressuring me into all that, and I refused to do it; I "instinctively" knew it was something I didn't want to do. And the consequences to me were getting ripped off, being universally humiliated by the crackheads, being served bullshit crack, getting beat up. And yes, my deeds are small and probably will remain unnoticed by history, and my name shall fade unmarked; but I refused to do what they, drunk with power and authority, decided I was supposed to do: I did not allow myself to be compelled to be what I was not.
And once again: if the shit were legalized, they couldn't have exerted so much pressure on me, and it would have been much harder for them to control the quality of the substances I was served.
And a lot of crackheads I knew, maybe even raquel herself, would have been freer to pursue their own thoughts of what their happiness should be, rather than conforming to what the "Family" told them they should feel makes them happy...
I climbed up a rickety old ladder, a triangular one, and tall. It was already on a hill or something else elevated above the ground. When I got to the top, I looked down and had vertigo - it was far enough that if I fell I would hurt myself badly, possibly die - 100 feet? something like that. Below I saw my mom face upturned towards me. And some others milling about. I called down: "Come up and get me!" But my mom said no. I was on my own, and was too scared to climb back down - the ladder was shaking, unstable.
My analysis: I got myself into danger, then expected my mom or others to rescue me.
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Second fragment: I am with tracie, in my car, outside a drug house. Some random dealer is in the back seat (like Al but it wasn't Al), he has drugs. Then we are going up to the house, and I look in the open windows with curtains floating in the breeze and see some girls sleeping on couches. The dealer and tracie are getting along famously, and head in the house or are already in the house. But the sight of a girl sleeping on a couch angers me, and I turn and storm back to my car. tracie and the dealer either don't notice, or take little notice; they are in the house, laughing amongst themselves. Back in my car, I load up about half of the little bit of crack I have left into a pipe that is made of a flashlight stuffed with brillo where the bulb should be. I hit it hard - but the crack melts into the sides, or something - I'm not getting it. I wake up inhaling deeply, feeling very disappointed...
Analysis: Well how many times has this actually happened to me, at Al's, at Kiki's, at Tiffany's, etc.: I meet the dealer just to get some crack, I'm even invited into the house where wanton loose slutty crack whores lounge around, sleeping on couches, walking around the kitchen, going in or coming out of the bathroom, whatever; and it always angered me, I never felt a part of it, I didn't want to be a part of their stupid freak scene, I just wanted to get my drugs and go...
(p. 306):
"I beg of you," said Bilbo stammering and standing on one foot, "to accept this gift!" and he brought out a necklace of silver and pearls that Dain had given him at their parting.
"In what way have I earned such a gift, O hobbit?" said the king.
"Well, er, I thought, don't you know," said Bilbo rather confused, "that, er, some little return should be made for your, er, hospitality. I mean even a burglar has his feelings. I have drunk much of your wine and eaten much of your bread."
---
So Bilbo has been a thief, has "no longer thought twice" about stealing; he has killed; but he repents, and at the end, seems to prefer his older innocence. The difference between him and me is: I didn't steal, well okay a little, but nowhere near the degree he did (my thefts gained no approval or acknowledgment even, from those who are inclined to view theft as a good thing). So, I think, I remain much more innocent than he did. He has more experience than I, he "got up in it", played the game, and won; for this he achieved renown and respect among his adventuring peers. Me, I refused to "get in it" to the extent he did; and, consequently, raquel and them never respected me.
But he is different from raquel and them too, Bilbo Baggins: for he repented. He tried their style of life, and decided he didn't like it, and returned to his innocence. He made amends to those he stole from. No one of those crackheads has made amends to me: raquel has never returned any of the crack she stole, or paid me back the many kindnesses, the hospitality, I showed her. They are so stuck in their ways, I don't think they could return to a state of innocence, if they ever were in one. But you never know...
(From p. 313:)
Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.
Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.
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It may be that raquel, one day, will turn away from the road she's currently on, the "horror in the halls of stone", and "look at last on meadows green" - the green meadows of Ellensburg! with me! - "And trees and hills they long have known": indeed she's known these trees and hills for a long time, since she came up here with me that one time.
---
to update this: being fair, tracie did give me some crack a few times. and raquel got me high once - before she got pissed at me. but i still feel that i gave far more than i ever received from them.
Shelver-girl and I are on a little bit of some cosmic coincidence thing. Yesterday when I came into the library, there she was at the desk helping some random guy, dressed in a red jumper, midriff exposed. Then up on the fourth floor, she just happens to have the shelving cart for the section I'm sitting in; she bangs around getting books off the cart, putting them on shelves; I turn around to look at her; she peeks around the corner of a bookshelf, smiles at me. We didn't make any more eye contact than that, but I enjoyed sitting there buried in my carrel reading "The Hobbit" while she flittered about making book-noises around me...
Then today, as I go in, she just happens to be walking out of a door behind the circulation desk, and we see each other. Then she just happens to be shelving a cart on the fourth floor behind where I'm sitting at the computer. And she bangs some books, and she bends over several times with her backside pointed toward me...
Oh yeah yesterday when I was at the computer and she was shelving in another area (she shelves several times a day), she took a break to walk, slowly, to the water cooler by the front stairs (not the back stairs which she easily could have chosen and thereby avoided me altogether), gets her drink, then walks back, slowly, swinging her hips sensually...
Then today when I leave to get something to eat, I get to the bottom of the stairs, and there she is of course, walking out from behind the circulation desk, getting off...I slowed down and let her go, she did seem to be hurrying a bit like she was not keen on the idea of me following her, but I didn't even watch which direction she went, just let her go out first then headed towards the Safeway happy that she wasn't in my field of vision.
Anyway she makes me smile when I see her, and I actually sort of feel comfortable when she's around, or when I think of her like now; she's cute! And if, as is overwhelmingly likely, it doesn't go anywhere and we never talk to each other, it's still cool.
Two dreams last night, at least partially remembered:
The first, I am at some kind of new computer job with Kim (Indian Kim, who gave me my first speedball over a decade ago, he's appeared in these journals before; he represents some sort of spiritual advisor to me). There is a woman supervisor, I am trying to figure out how to log in to a Unix machine: login -s? -v? something is screwing up, not getting it...Kim seems like he might know how to do it but he's not helping me; I am worried about the female supervisor getting impatient...Then we are traveling, in a van, then the van is flying, then we are at some grassy place going to a house where there is another computer to log in to, or something...I get the feeling this is a Family (the god damn "Crack Family" again) thing, yet another test, Kim (who is definitely part of the "Crack Family") is being employed to test me.
Stupid Family. There are only two things I've ever wanted from them: raquel, and crack. I never wanted to join them, be a part of them, share in their "fun". They are not my family. Their activities, their philosophy, their way of life, do not appeal to me. They are wrong, as far as I'm concerned, on too many things; and their power derives largely from the illegality of drugs. Legalize drugs, and their ability to exert so much influence over my life would be greatly diminished.
2nd dream: my "real" family. My brother, my mother, Maria. I'm having some sort of argument with my mom, trying to say that she has treated me unfairly. In response, she lies, saying "no", convincingly as she is always able to do. I push her (not violently, but enough to move her back). I am fairly close to her face; I say loudly, confidently, deliberately, with an expression to match: "Yes, you, do." (meaning "treat me unfairly", "lie", whatever). She is taken aback, and realizes the truth in what I'm saying. Jim does too, although I am suspicious of him and want to accuse him of hurting me unfairly too.
2004-10-21
Some kind of hit...it's at least a different feeling from before the hit...numbness in the right side of the brain, mouth tense inside, desire to spit...extreme nervousness, who's around? are there people watching? don't want to see anyone, too hard to deal with anyone, want to just disappear, not be subject to their judgments...why do they judge all the time, every encounter? they are always on...if you show weakness any one time, they win...but I am weak, so what? Why must they pounce, prey on the weak? It is unfair, they have no reason to, no need ; it is against the law, unprovoked aggressiveness; it's assault really...they are caught in an obsolete jungle survival mode that orders: attack! because if they didn't then they would starve or die. But now, if they don't attack they will not die; there are laws, there is a social safety net...yet still they are slaves to the ancient survival strategies...
Remember to say hello to your bank teller.
