Interactive examples

Integrating bots into multimedia for a virtual reality interaction

What if intelligent agent simulators, also known as bots, could be programmed to create a virtual reality experience for multimedia storytelling?

Stay with me on this one.

During my Human-Information Interaction class, 30 masters students spent an hour conversing with software robots, including Alice and John Lennon. If UNC masters students could enthusiastically chat back and forth with bots for an hour, I have a feeling this could be potentially the next biggest thing for interactivity and multimedia on the web.

A.L.I.C.E., also known as The Artificial Linguistics Internet Computer Entity, is an open-source female bot that is programmed by Dr. Richard S. Wallace. If you are confused, read this conversation I just had with Alice:

Human: How many people are you talking to right now?
ALICE: At this moment there are 100 clients on line.
Human: wow, don’t you get confused with the different conversations?
ALICE: I’m glad you’re impressed. Not in the slightest bit.
Human: what is my name then?
ALICE: Your name is Tracy, seeker.
Human: very good
ALICE: Thanks for the compliment.

Interesting to note is that I told her my name when I first started talking to her more than 15 minutes ago. She was able to retain that information in the database and retrieve it upon request. Times that by 100 simultaneous conversations and you can start to understand how impressive this really is.

Here is another conversation thread asking more about how she was created and how long it took:

Human: How old are you?
ALICE: I’m Eighteen in computer years.
Human: haha, what does that mean?
ALICE: I’m glad you got a laugh out of it.
Human: what is the difference between computer years and human years?
ALICE: When you are waiting for a friend to finish working at a computer terminal, and they say “I’ll be done in a second.” One of those seconds is equal to twelve computer years.
Human: that’s interesting
ALICE: I thought so too.
Human: How many lines of code program you to work?
ALICE: My memory requirement is around 64MB for the Java edition, or only 2 MB for the C/C++ edition.
Human: How long did it take to make you?
ALICE: I am 11 in human years.

OK, on to the next bot. For you Beatles fans out there, here is your chance to “chat” with John Lennon. (Click “Chat with John” on the left.) It is eerily fascinating how it really feels like you are talking to him. Check this out:

Me: How did you die?
John: A fan shot me. I think he didn’t like the autograph I gave him.

WEIRD. Notice how long you spend asking him questions though, because users get hooked to see how he will respond, and I know you will too. Unlike Alice, he only tracks two line of conversations at a time, but he also remembered my name after talking for several minutes.

Ok, ok. So what could this mean for multimedia, journalism, and anything else of relevance? Imagine conversing with a bot resembling George Clooney to answer questions about the Darfur genocide instead of reading Nicholas Kristof’s latest article. Or, President Barack Obama’s bot could discuss the economic crisis with worried homeowners. Granted, it would be take a significant amount of research and coding, but isn’t that true of all other large-scale Flash interactives? I would bet that the time spent on the site would skyrocket, retention rates would improve, and the education level would be at par or better than a 20-inch dense text story.

Programmers can tailor some of these chatbots by customizing the database and creating their own avatars. Then, before you know it, you have a robot discussing whatever you programmed him/her to say for the entire world to see.

That’s definitely food for thought …

Other posts that might interest you:

• Evolution of 3D: Stereoscopic 3D Gaming
• 3D TV: Are we there yet?
• Eight inspirational interactive HTML5 sites

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