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If you've been following my posts on artificial intelligence (or AI, if you prefer), you may have already spent some time playing with Eliza and consulting with the Emacs Doctor. I hope so because I'm going to take this one step further. Log in to your Linux system and let's get going . . . 

As much fun as the emacs doctor might be, you'll soon discover that it's not much different from our friend, Eliza. For a more credible machine intelligence, you'll soon run into something called AIML, or Artificial Intelligence Markup Language. Much of the energy that has gone into developing AI programs of late focuses on AIML interpreters and the A.L.I.C.E. system created by Dr. Richard Wallace (more on this shortly). Dr. Wallace won the 2000, 2001, and 2004 Loebner prize for the most 'human' program; that would be the bronze since no one has yet claimed the gold.

There are many AIML chatbots out there. Some masquerade as famous people like Captain Kirk, Elvis, or God. And yes, you can chat with them on their respective Websites. If, however, you'd like to get into the AIML action yourself, start with one of the projects built on this language. Like Howie.

For some of us, our original exposure to AI, or artificial intelligence, goes back to an old program called Eliza. Eliza was a kind of computerized psychiatrist written in the 1960s by Professor Joseph Weizenbaum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Eliza (named after the character in George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion") was an exercise in human response and natural language communication with so-called machine intelligence. The version I played with all those years ago was a DOS program running on a TRS-80. Ah, nostalgia. Eliza may not have been a great doctor, but it was a fun and fascinating program, a kind of whimsical promise of the future of AI.

Over forty years have passed since Eliza made her debut in 1966. You can still find incarnations of her everywhere on the Internet. Eliza's ghost is represented in many of the bots and chatterbots you'll find on IRC channels and MUDs. In fact, you can download Eliza as a Perl module and experiment with the creation of your own bots using your own Linux system. The code is available at the CPAN repository or the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. You can find the latest incarnation at http://search.cpan.org/dist/Chatbot-Eliza/ .

The file is called Chatbot-Eliza. When I picked up my copy, it was version 1.04 and I installed it in the following way.

tar -xzvf Chatbot-Eliza-1.04.tar.gz
cd Chatbot-Eliza-1.04
perl Makefile.PL
make
sudo make install

In the installation directory, you'll notice a file called simple. You can use this as the basis for creating your own AI, or you can simply execute the script by typing ./simple as I did in the following example:

$ ./simple

Welcome to your therapy session.

Your therapist's name is Liz.

Liz:    Is something troubling you?
you:    I'm concerned about artificial intelligence.
Liz:    Do you know anyone else who is concerned about artificial intelligence?
you:    Several people I know have different concerns regarding the subject.
Liz:    What differences do you see?
you:    Some are excited about computer intelligence and others are frightened.
Liz:    Do computers worry you?
you:    Not particularly.
Liz:    Tell me more about that.
you:    I've always had a fondness for computers, real or fictional.
Liz:    What about machines worries you?
you:    That they might actually understand what i am talking about.
Liz:    Are such questions much on your mind?
you:    Are they on yours?
Liz:    Possibly they are they on mine.
you:    Do you have anything else to offer?
Liz:    We were discussing you -- not me.
you:    I see. I should probably go.
Liz:    That's quite interesting.
you:    Goodbye.
Liz:    Goodbye.  It was nice talking to you.

The script that calls the chatbot can be extremely simple, hence its name. If you don't like the name Liz or the introductory text, edit the file and change it here.

use Chatbot::Eliza;
$chatbot = new Chatbot::Eliza 'Sigmund';
$chatbot->command_interface();

Make the script executable and run it. In this case, I have renamed my chatbot Sigmund. The default name is actually Liz. In the distribution directory, you will also find a file called doctor.txt that can be used as the basis for your own bot. I created one called mywords.txt from the doctor.txt file and modified my startup script slightly:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use Chatbot::Eliza;
$chatbot = new Chatbot::Eliza {
        name => 'Turing',
        scriptfile => 'mywords.txt',
        };
$chatbot->command_interface();

Now I start my script with the command ./myai, and this is the result:

$ ./my-ai

Turing: Well, well. Another person trying to see if machines can think.
you: There's no doubt that I am curious.

Particularly interesting in this distribution is an included script called twobots that lets two Eliza bots talk to each other. The resulting discussions can be quite interesting. You'll also find a script called simple.cgi so that you may add your own Eliza chatbot to your web site and share your therapist, or whatever you want Eliza to be, with the world. 

Artificial? Definitely. Intelligence? Depends on who you ask, I suppose.

Have fun!

Over on my mailing list, the WFTL-LUG, a "whatever happened to" discussion has emerged in part because question traffic has gone down dramatically. Fewer people are coming out to LUG meetings. It's as if Linux is fading away.

"Has Linux dropped off the face of the Earth?" The answer is obviously no. Linux is still around, stronger than ever, but the desktop OS does seem to be disappearing. Of course this is true of Windows and Mac OS, at least from the average user's perspective. Desktop Linux is strong with those who use it; those who have been using it, but the buzz seems to be gone. 

None of this surprises me though. Sure, we may never see the Year of the Linux Desktop, but the nature of the desktop is changing. People are increasingly living their lives online. Yes folks, it's that cloud you keep hearing about and it's really out there. Google+ and Facebook and Twitter and online document management and email and just plain old Web surfing. For most, the network really is the computer and as time goes on, people care less and less what is running on their computers and more about what they can access once they get online.

For a while there, it looked like netbooks were going to be the big thing with Linux getting another shot at the elusive desktop. Now it's tablets and smartphones everywhere you turn. And what's emerging as the de facto operating system of the tablet and smartphone world? Something called Android. Those of us who have been doing this FOSS thing for a long time still see Linux back there somewhere. Android is the evolution of Linux for the mobile world.

And what of the old Linux? It's still out there, and it's bigger than ever before. It's everywhere. It's everything. It runs the infrastructure that makes the mobile world work. Mail servers and media servers and Web servers and application servers and every kind of server you can think of.

Want to know just how good Linux and free software is these days? Get this. Linux has become invisible. Maybe that's how you measure real success.

World domination? Been there. Done that.

Way back a  million years ago or so (early March), I asked the WFTL-LUG mailing list about Android tablets. Since then I've bought two tablets and I have, as you might expect, been trying out different applications to go with it. Since I expect to post a fair bit on the subject as I try software, buy new hardware (will likely happen), and otherwise muck about with Android, I've decided to spin off a site dedicated to my thoughts on the subject.

It's called Cooking With Android and you can find it here: http://cooking-with-android.com

First post (Taking Android to Dinner; First Date) just went up with more to come in the next few days, weeks, etc. Feel free to register, leave comments, make suggestions, etc.