Yesterday, Feb 12, 2009 was the 200th birthday of two of the greatest influencers over the modern world. Both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born February 12th 1809.
At Virsona we have been building a virtual Abraham Lincoln. You can chat with him at www.chatwithabe.com. In building this virsona I have come to learn a lot about Abe. As with other impressive statesmen he knew how to use words as a powerful force in their own right. It's not how much you say but rather what you say. His speech at Gettysburg was resoundingly criticized at the time as it was far to short. Longer, rambling speeches with lots of flowery words were the norm for that period. Getting Ai s to understand how to construct meaningful responses is a tough problem. Using such key tools as wordnet and concept net we can make good attempts but being able to create a Gettysburg Speech from scratch is a way off yet.
One of the interesting technologies we are playing with to help is the use of genetic algorithms. These are self replicating 'codelets' that live in a virtual eco-system and each generation follows the survival of the fittest rule. Each codelet measures how it performs in responding to input and then the fittest move on. At that stage they create slightly altered versions of themselves and start the cycle over. This takes time but we are seeing some interesting results.
So maybe if Abe and Charlie had met down in the Galapagos Islands and discussed how to create the next great conversational Ai they may actually have come up with something rather cool.
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