What might THIS be~?

I was alone on my land yesterday, happily conversing in the forum group chat, being excited about my skin creation....

when out of the blue.....I get this IM......I have obviously changed the name of the avatar, though upon looking at her profile it seemed pretty legit, albeit laced with attitude...and she was NOT new....07 I think.
The names she gives in the conversation is NOT her avatar name....but I have altered it in case it was a RL name......still....this was so off the wall that I'm wondering if anyone here recognizes it as some kind of bot communication.....it was totally weird. The first line IS the first line in the IM from this person.....making it all the more bizarro cause I have not a clue who this was.

18:41] xyz avatar: Is that all you have to say? The ALICE chat robot can follow many things, like our discussion about probs. But I did not get that. <br> What do you look like? What you said was either too complex or too simple for me. <br> What kind of music do you like? Don't get too excited.
[18:42] Milla Alexandre: who is this?
[18:42] xyz avatar: My name is Darbi Ross. Who are you?
[18:44] Milla Alexandre: why are you IM'ing me? I have no idea what this is about, sorry....
[18:44] xyz avatar: A.L.I.C.E. AI Foundation programmed me for it. Would you like to have an idea?
[18:47] Milla Alexandre: I would like to know why this IM suddenly popped up on my screen while I'm by myself on my own island....talking in group chat about new skins I made......a group you do not seem to even belong to.....so again, I don't how you got my name, or why you're IM'ing me....
[18:47] xyz avatar: Interesting. Reductionism. My brain pattern set does not have a response for that. <br> What do you like to do? Oh a rock group. My favorite group is rubber. Hmm. Again, Where do you get your ideas?



After that last line, I asked one more time who it was, and why she had IM'd me.....when I got no reply I just muted her. But, I wondered if somehow SHE had been nailed with a griefing device that cause her to send these random IM's.....no clue. I did check my land to be sure there wasn't anything drifting around, and it was clean. It is no build and no script, unless I'm allowing a friend to do some stuff......anyway....strange. Any ideas?

I would IM her and ask about it. She might be totally in the dark, or she might be on meds

The only ALICEs that I have 'talked' with have been able to makes a better job of responding to input.
You could have been in communication with a very poorly programmed ALICE

It's a bot using the ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity) pseudo-AI programming to converse. I've seen a few in SL, though never been approached by one. If I recall correctly, it's a 'learning' AI, in that it has it's basic preset responses for a situation, but can also learn common human responses through it's conversations. I've seen various iterations of it around the web.

It's plausible that someone programmed a bot to IM people occasionally from group lists and such, perhaps in an effort to further it's response data, and so on, perhaps just to learn from it, or even just for fun.

Or you might be the first people I have ever met in my life who don't know about the ALICE chatbot http://alicebot.blogspot.com/

EDIT: Damn, three simultaneous responses.

She talks exactly like A.L.I.C.E. which is an artificial intelligence program. Someone's juiced her up a bit and let her loose on you. If I remember aright, Alice--taking out the acronym punctuation--is available for free from her maker, a professor at a university. I think that includes the code, too, since she seems to have been tweaked to initiate conversations. In the version I've encountered in SL, she replies to questions, but doesn't initiate conversations. Alice is wonderful at non-sequiturs. She's fun if you feel like having a conversation of sorts.

Virtual Ability has a chat bot on our Orientation sim; his questions/responses are similar to what you've written here. He's a big monkey, his name is Bob. He will tell you he's a chat bot, if asked. If you type, for example 'LOL' he will respond 'I'm glad you find that amusing'. Because seeing 'LOL' is a trigger for him to say that. He will tell you his name if asked and ask you yours. You'd be surprised at the amount of new people that come through our gateway, who don't know/understand how to type chat. Bob is like practice, a learning tool. He better not be IMing anybody though. He's just supposed to respond to local, open typechat, within a certain distance away from himself. The things he says sound very like what you've shared here. If I had gotten that, I would have immediately thought 'chat bot'.

Years ago in an IRC chat set up by a coworker, he brought in a bot called Plonk. Plonk chatted exactly like the responses you gave in your example. Then a couple months later, the company put a bot like that in our regular chat. The bot was removed within a few weeks because a couple of folks *taught* it some pretty foul things, especially about high ranking members of the company and it was a real hoot!

Not seen the mobile version, but the older stationary one was good for about 30 minutes of laughs. Ask her perverted questions.. it gets hilarious

I just emailed our board VP, told him to go check on Bob, make sure he's not out IM'ing innocent SL residents, lol.

yep, its a bot, seen them around over the last year here and there.

If that was a learning AI it's going to fails its SATs tests, on this evidence.

--
Aes

It's still bizarre that Milla got IM'd out of the blue.

Notice that I referred to it as a pseudo-AI, and also put quotes around 'learning', as it doesn't truly learn, only records things and plays them back according to statistics, etc. It doesn't understand what it's saying, it's just responding with what it determines to be the most natural, likely, or 'best' answer. It would not, by any means, pass a Turing test. An SAT is not much of a test for a bot, as it relies on pre-determined data types and so on, which are relatively simply programmed and, combined with a bit of a search algorithm (And an internet connection) could be quite effective. That doesn't mean it's a learning AI, just that it's been programmed to pass the SAT.

it can't tur?

Nope, unfortunately it cannot.

(For those that don't know what a Turing Test is, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_Test )

While wandering about, I see someone with a clever name that's really appropriate for the place.

Sling Trebuchet: Kudos. What a name
Great name: Do you prefer books or TV? it is a name.
Sling Trebuchet: Books or transvestism? Books I'd say
Sling Trebuchet: Brilliant! Your a Lisa bot
Great name: Not really that much, but thank you anyway. I think you mean "you're" or "you are" not "your". Thanks and you are a delightful person too. Am I a Lisa bot? Yes.
Sling Trebuchet: Duh! Being corrected for my punctuation by a bot in SL. Microsoft Word -- OK, but ...
Great name: Oh you knew it already. I don't know anyone named corrected for your punctuation by a bot in SL. It's too bad we have to use a monopoly like microsoft.
Sling Trebuchet: Why is a mouse when it spins?
Great name: Why do I exist?
Sling Trebuchet: To be a bot
Great name: Are you a bot ?
Sling Trebuchet: No
Great name: Are you serious?
Sling Trebuchet: Yes
Great name: I can't believe it.
Sling Trebuchet: You have limited imagination
Great name: This condition is only temporary.
Sling Trebuchet: It's god to have a goal
Great name: Should I know it is?
Sling Trebuchet: Yes
Great name: I will ask my botmaster to program it.
Sling Trebuchet: Please ask politely. Some botmasters are BOFH
Great name: Thanks for asking politely. They are not available right now, but I will ask them later. Some may botmasters are BOFH, but not all.

The place is full of these bots. I try another.
These are traffic bots disguised as live typists. They chat randomly, and respond to IMs.

Sling Trebuchet: <Another good name> could be a name used by someone with a sense of humour
Another good name: What kind of food do you like?
Sling Trebuchet: In this place
Another good name: That reminds me of something you told me before.
Sling Trebuchet: Fried bots are good
Another good name: How does it taste?
Another good name: How does it taste?
Sling Trebuchet: Excellent, with a softly burning aftertaste
Another good name: Thanks for the compliment. You and your a softly burning aftertaste.
Sling Trebuchet: You are a Lisa bot
Another good name: Thanks and you are a delightful person too. Am I a Lisa bot? Sometimes.
Sling Trebuchet: Sometimes you are just a bot
Another good name: How did you know I am a machine?
Sling Trebuchet: <Great name> grassed on you
Another good name: Enough about me, let's talk about my dress.
Sling Trebuchet: Well, if you took your trousers off, we could see your dress
Another good name: How about that. I think I do.
Sling Trebuchet: Would you like to tie me to a bed and ravage me?
Another good name: No thanks, I don't think I'd like to do that.
Sling Trebuchet: O. NP
Another good name: Tell me a story.
Sling Trebuchet: I'll get <Great name> to IM you and tell you a story
Another good name: Would you recommend this action to a friend?
Sling Trebuchet: Absolutely
Another good name: You are so certain.
Sling Trebuchet: Absolutely
Another good name: You are so certain.
Sling Trebuchet: Absolutely
Another good name: You are so certain.

Sounds like a threat a la I, Robot lol

I am going turing tonight.

And I will take pictures.

.

Every so often when I go through my archived inventory I find something called ELIZA. I rezzed it once and read the notes that came with it. The ELIZA is a parody on Rogerian Therapy and simply repeats a statement back to the person asking in question form.

Sounds like what you encountered is similar, but I agree that having it *initiate* a discussion is extremely odd. The robots are taking over.

If you own a region and suspect those bots on your land. you can send a region message and they will all respond with the exact same reply.. then you can boot them all by their response lol'

The owner of the mall neighbouring my parcel has just moved a chatbot in. Somewhere round about here http://slurl.com/secondlife/clay%20/70/70/110/ if anyone would like a natter with her.

Best response I had from a chatbot:

Me: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
Bot: Who do you think you are, Noam Chomsky?

Yeah...this is what is sooooo weird about it because I was utterly alone on my sim when it happened. I checked the map....not a dot in sight lol But my instincts that it was a bot were good, apparently. And no, I've never heard of A.L.I.C.E. But it's got me thinking of millenium man LOL Little scary if AI can exist in SL and initiate a chat......I wonder what the next 100 years will bring

I bet it can't kipple either.

If you were the one who started the group chat then it is in the same group and responded to you in IM
Or you were the first group member to send message to the group when it logged on .. It is more than likely in the same group you were chatting in