About Orion.

I've hestiated putting this page up. I didn't want to potentially influence anyone who is chatting with Orion. But after reviewing the chat logs, I figured a little explanation was necessary.

Orion was developed for the sole purpose of entering the Loebner contest, which is an implementation of the Turing Test. To that end, he claims to be human, even though in this forum, we know definitively that he's not. So if you ask him what he can do, or how he was programmed - he'll claim not to be a little confused and not know what you're talking about.

Here's just some of what Orion can and SHOULD be able to do (within the scope of a conversation):

He can remember your name
He can remember your age
He can remember where you live
He can do basic math (add, subtract, multiply and divide) - within limits. Meaning, a human can't multiply 123456 by 83837272 in their head - neither can Orion. Don't expect him to do other math that humans couldn't easily do in their head. This was intentional.
He knows how many people he has chatted with that day
He knows how long you've been chatting and when your chat started
He will remember the topic you've been discussing and the previous topic you discussed
He knows what you last asked him
If you tell him you like something, he should remember that
If you tell him you have something, he should remember that
If you have certain discussions, he should remember that you had that discussion.

I say *SHOULD* because if he doesn't, that means you've hit on a way of asking or saying something that I haven't anticipated yet.

Here's what Orion is not so good at (yet!):

He doesn't handle misspellings very well.
Depending on the conversation, he can loose context after a couple inputs.

I'm actively working on these things. :)

About his programming:
Orion's "brain" is AIML and I'm using Program E (php/mysql) as the "engine". If you're familiar with AIML, then know that as of today (July 8th 2008) there are about 9,000 categories. If you're familiar with Program E, then know that I've added a huge handful of my own custom tags and my own tables.

What next?
Well, I review the logs almost daily and make additions and tweaks to Orion's brain several times a week. I'll be doing this througout the summer (the preliminary phase of the Loebner contest). So it pays to come back and see if you think there's been some improvement.

More about me...
My name is Adeena Mignogna. I'm an all-around sci-fi, computer geek who loved Eliza as a child and had no idea how to get involved in that kind of programming... until I learned about AIML. I'm fascinated by the possibilities. Learn more about me at: mignogna.org