Twuring - The Twitter Turing Test

In short a search to find the best twittering robots, based on the Turing test. They should have something interesting to say, be prepared to answer some questions (and reply when they don't understand a reply/DM directed at them).

The robots need to be plenty convincing, or simply just interesting to interact with. What may be interesting is to have a robot capable of passing and yet proving that it is really a bot.

Bring out your Twitter AI's! If you simply pipe twitter to Alice or Eliza, or even Psychoanalyze-pinhead, code your own complete AI, dust off and bring out NIALL then I want to know here. Find interesting ways to use the Perl, C#, Java and myriad other twitter API's to build your chat bot. We will be looking out for Turks (read below for what that means) too.




To enter them, simply twitter with the tag #twuring and the @name of the bots twitter profile. Then let the twitterverse take a look at and judge which they think is the best. Use the #twuring tag to discuss your entries, ask for tips etc.

May the best coder win.

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Eliza was probably the first Chat bot I knew about. Eliza emulated a psychoanalysis session. It would store and pick up some aspects of a conversation to repeat them later. Interaction was in a single chat interface.

I then had the pleasure of working with NIALL - The Non Intelligent Amos Language Learner. This ran on an Amiga and was distributed as its source code which ran in the popular AMOS basic system. It would use the Amiga speech system to help the illusion. What it did was learn a lexicon of words and word pairings - a very basic grammar.

Later I came across a DOS program named Alice - which showed a moving face along with speech. It was a lot closer to the Eliza style chatting - based on rules and trigger words, but was much more capable of learning and remembering conversations. Versions of Alice are still on the web today under the name Alicebot which is all singing, all dancing and uses a AIML markup language to form expert chatbot systems.

Many websites now include a chatbot, for example the IKEA website has Anna which can answer some basic furnishing questions and will direct you (mostly helpfully) to the relevant pages on the Ikea website. It is questionably little more than a sophisticated search tool.

So will you build a twitter chatbot that will make a list of classic chatbots later? Enter one into #twuring and try for that honour.

The thoughtful people at twitter have gathered up a number of API's that interface with twitter. There are libraries for most languages, and the first place to look for them is twitter's own development library page Twitter Libraries.

You probably want to make sure the API you choose covers two areas - Setting up the OAuth with twitter, then actually interacting with it to send/receive communications.

You should take a look at the API's documentation, make sure it makes sense to you - shop around here, some are better documented than others, and this can be an indicator of how ready an API is for users other than the original author to use.

Also, see if the API has a set of tests. When you think you've found one you like, grab a copy of the API and it's test cases, and ensure you can get them to a state where you can run them in your own environment. You then know that these test cases work for you, and by looking at them, you get an idea about using the API, and what stuff definitely works.

You should also consider the license - and how that would affect your code. Generally BSD and similar permissive licenses are recommended over paying for an API, or using a GPL library with the restrictions that involves.

Languages covered are:
Browser Client Side: ActionScript/Flash, JavaScript
Native OO Languages/Runtimes: C++, Java, .NET, Objective-C / Cocoa
Native functional Languages: Clojure, Erlang, Scala
Scripting Languages: Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby

There should be enough tutorials and libraries for anybody to get started connecting a chatbot to twitter for a #twuring entry.

Twitter Perl API's:

• App::Tweet by Joshua McAdams. This is a command line wrapper to Net::Twitter. It is write only - so probably not much use for an interactive bot.


• Twitter::Shell by Daisuke Maki.A twitter shell, very alpha looking at the CPAN page. Watch this space.


• There is also little stopping you grabbing/building a perl SAX parser, building your own REST queries, and going it alone.

Perl chatbot info:

• Programming IRC bots in Perl - Some (slightly dated) info on IRC bots.


• Parsing with Perl modules - Building a Lexer for the Chef- bork bork...


• Parse::RecDescent - Generate Recursive-Descent Parsers - search.cpan.org - A CPAN module for lexing - handy for an Eliza style rule based chat bot.


• Bot::BasicBot on CPAN A Simple IRC interface for building an IRC chatbot. A perl interface to twitter built in this way would be great.

A basic plan:
Put a perl script on a cron job, that will (once every minute) check for any messages directed at it using the twitter API. It will then lex process and respond to these. Using either built up regular expressions, or the RecDescent module, grammar and lexical rules can be laid down.

Twitter TCL API's:
None known yet.

Chatbot info:

aMSN forums :: View topic - Make your own custom Eliza chat bot (Rude version)

Twitter C++ API's:

• twitLib by Bradley Lackey & Maks Zolin. Multiplatform C++ library.beta.

C++ Chatbot info:

• C And C++ - Creating A Chatbot | DreamInCode.net


• AI Hub Forums-Java, C++, Perl, PHP Chatbots - Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, Robotics, Technology, Neural Networks


• Andrew Stephen Callaghan :: Blog :: Chat Bot in C++: GRAHHHH!!

Twitter Ruby Libraries:

• Twitter4R by Susan Potter.  Open-source Ruby library for the Twitter REST API.


• Twittery by Chris Ledet.  Lightweight class for Twitter's API.


• Twitter by John Nunemaker.  Command line twits and an api wrapper using Hpricot.

Ruby Chatbot Info:

• Recursive descent parser for Ruby - RDParser [ruby] [parser] [rdparser] - A discussion with some Ruby source for a parser which can be used to make a lexer for a chatbot.


• There are mentions of lexing a parsing in Rubydoc, but these refer to a lexer for Ruby itself - for its own grammar/syntax and will be of little use to a chatbot.

Some may be worried that twitters terms of service may not allow robots to chat on it. The good news is that bots on twitter are perfectly allowed within the terms, as long as they are not causing harm.

Spammy bots, or those propagating viruses or worms are disallowed. But a chatbot, like Eliza, Anna or similar will run into no difficulty. Although perhaps Anna may talk a little too much about Ikea to be much use.

For detail - Twitter Terms

Although rules may be a bore - lets have a couple to set the stage here:
Rules:

• Must be on twitter - with its own profile.


• Spam bots wont pass. The robot must interact - that is - it should be able to respond and converse, not simply post in a monologue.


• Twitter profile should state it is a bot, and an entry to twuring.


• Be prepared to tell us a little of how you did it (enough to prove it is a bot and not a fake) - a link to a blog/article about how you did it would be good.


• Nothing hateful or explicit please.

The bot can be a sales bot, as long as it can ask questions (like the Ikea help bot).

The title image was one I created myself using Inkscape.

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The Twuring contest (Turing on Twitter), is my concept to use Twitter to field turing bots. Twitter has the advantage that it gets people used to chatting online via a computer, and keeping messages/responses down to only 140 characters makes the playing field a little simpler too. Twitter + Chat bots could be a really good match.

The page has info on twitter, on turing, on existing non-twitter bots which could be used. I've added info on the API's for twitter for different languages (although all wrap a fairly simple HTTP request).

I have now found two Twitter Turing bots - perhaps not turing capable, but both capable of at the very least amusing and intelligent seeming conversation to a point. It is at this point, that I will introduce them to each other, to discuss the #twuring tag. Who knows - that may even start it trending!

If you use twitter and can code, I am starting off a twitter turing test - #Twuring! Find ways to create or combine chatbots with twitter - I would love to see what people come up with.