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        riddles >> general problem-solving / chatting / whatever >> automated conversations for online dating  
        
(Message started by: amichail on May 26th, 2006, 9:42pm)
Title: automated conversations for online dating  
Post by amichail on May 26th, 2006, 9:42pm
It would be nice to automate conversation to some extent. This would allow you to talk to millions of people in a very short period of time.

Consider for example an online dating service.

You would chat with people. Some of those chats would be live while others would consist of replies taken automatically from previous chats by others with that person. A similarity measure would be used to pick the most suitable reply based on the question.  The service would generate conversations even if both people are missing by taking sentences from past conversations with each.

This approach is different from a fixed profile for online dating say, since your conversation profile just keeps expanding.

Moreover, you can check your automated replies to see if they were reasonable, and if not, you can improve them. This would improve future conversations (and perhaps even fix past ones).

You would also need some way to score conversations to compute compatibility scores for online dating. Promising conversations would be  brought to your attention. If you like what you see, you could unlock more private aspects of your conversation profile for future automated conversations with that person.

Do you know if something like this has been done? Would you use it (not necessarily for dating)? How would it compare with social networking?
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating  
Post by JocK on May 26th, 2006, 11:31pm
No, thanks.

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Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &nbs
Post by rmsgrey on May 27th, 2006, 9:15am
Why, yes, I like cabbages too.

(tell you what, let's just let my conversation bot and your conversation bot date each other, and I can continue looking for people who will actually talk to me)
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &
Post by towr on May 27th, 2006, 9:39am

on 05/27/06 at 09:15:09, rmsgrey wrote:
(tell you what, let's just let my conversation bot and your conversation bot date each other, and I can continue looking for people who will actually talk to me)
*lol*

There is some merit to the idea. Personal 'agents' could help find any sort of information/things on the net, including 'interesting people'.
But it would be important to make it clear to actual people conversing with agents that they are dealing with an agent and that it doesn't pretend to be its owner.
It'd be a nice and quick way to find things out about people and maybe schedule appointments, that sort of thing.
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &
Post by rmsgrey on May 27th, 2006, 10:19am

on 05/27/06 at 09:39:14, towr wrote:
*lol*

There is some merit to the idea. Personal 'agents' could help find any sort of information/things on the net, including 'interesting people'.
But it would be important to make it clear to actual people conversing with agents that they are dealing with an agent and that it doesn't pretend to be its owner.
It'd be a nice and quick way to find things out about people and maybe schedule appointments, that sort of thing.

Yeah, an automated "personal secretary" would be useful, provided it had sufficient judgement to know what to forward for my personal attention, and that keeping it up to date on relevant information was sufficiently painless...
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &nbs
Post by Grimbal on May 27th, 2006, 3:21pm
It is called a "FAQ".

Is is called "use the search function before asking a question that has been asked before on the forum."

It is called a "blog": If you want to know me personally, everything is on my blog.  You don't need the URL, because I am probably not the person you actually want to know.  Use google to find the blog of a person that writes things you like to read.  If you want to react, post it anywhere known by google.  I might read it, somehow, even if it is not my blog you reacted to.
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &
Post by amichail on May 27th, 2006, 4:29pm
This is a serious proposal.  I may build such a service soon.  It takes the idea of celebrity bots to another level:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4128156,00.html

I don't know if such a service would be effective for online dating but I think there is a novelty factor that would attract people to the service.  The idea that you could talk to millions of people with little effort may appeal to some.

Moreover, you might find it fascinating to build up a conversation profile from your chat sessions.  You might learn something about yourself, particularly after observing thousands of automated conversations involving your bot.  You can analyze your personality in this way -- and perhaps even make changes.

You could also use such a service for other purposes, such as to make business contacts and perhaps even to advertise your product in a more creative way.
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &
Post by towr on May 28th, 2006, 7:33am

on 05/27/06 at 16:29:34, amichail wrote:
It takes the idea of celebrity bots to another level:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4128156,00.html
Being a 5 years old article, I'd say celebrity bots haven't really taken off.
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &
Post by amichail on May 28th, 2006, 7:44am

on 05/28/06 at 07:33:32, towr wrote:
Being a 5 years old article, I'd say celebrity bots haven't really taken off.


I think people will be more interested in a bot approximating them, rather than some celebrity.

The ability to make yourself scale could have interesting applications.
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &nbs
Post by Icarus on May 28th, 2006, 11:29am
I don't know how useful it might be, but it reminds me of an old Robert Scheckley story "The Robot Who Looked Like Me", about a man who was too busy at work and other obligations to date his girlfriend, so he sends a robot designed to look and act like him. It turns out that she is doing the same thing, and the story ends with the two robots eloping and living a wonderful life while the real people grind away at their jobs and live only vicariously through reports of what their robots are doing.


I really don't see that having bots "chat" with each other accomplishes much. It would seem more sensible to me to create personality profiles that could be searched. But when a match is found, the actual chatting should be left to real people.
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &nbs
Post by towr on May 28th, 2006, 3:02pm
You can make a sensible step up from searchable personality profiles, by having 'agents' do the searching, and requesting aditional info.
An important difference is that the agent is always ready to check out updates to profiles or new profiles. And it can potentially filter more effectively than search engines (but that depends on what you consider the border between search engine technology and egant technology. There is considerable overlap in this area.)

One advantage to a chat clone, is that it allows others to experience some quotes in the wild of you. Assuming it is copying actual answers from you when similar questions are asked of it.
(Naturally it could be included in a personality profile as well. But it may be a more natural interface)
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &
Post by amichail on Jun 2nd, 2006, 5:32am
Another idea for online dating is to have a game whereby users try to pair up people who look like they would get along based on their profiles.  The number of points awarded would depend on whether those two people actually make contact and to the extent that they do so.

It's sort of like an artificial game market where the pairings of people are stocks.

By looking at the highest valued stocks involving you, you can immediately see who others think you will like.   If you like what you see, you could initiate contact and see what happens.
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &
Post by Grimbal on Jun 2nd, 2006, 5:50am

on 05/27/06 at 09:15:09, rmsgrey wrote:
(tell you what, let's just let my conversation bot and your conversation bot date each other, and I can continue looking for people who will actually talk to me)

Actually, it could work like this.  Let the bots talk to each other and if they decide there is a match, they notify their "owners" that they should contact each other.  In that case, it wouldn't be necessary that they mimic their owner, or even that they use human speach.  But they are probably easier to debug if they do.
Title: Re: automated conversations for online dating &
Post by amichail on Jun 2nd, 2006, 6:08am

on 06/02/06 at 05:50:06, Grimbal wrote:
Actually, it could work like this.  Let the bots talk to each other and if they decide there is a match, they notify their "owners" that they should contact each other.  In that case, it wouldn't be necessary that they mimic their owner, or even that they use human speach.  But they are probably easier to debug if they do.

I think many people would be interested in seeing human speech, particularly when it involves a simulation of them.

BTW, this chatbot idea has many potential applications -- not just online dating.  These include business meetings, social gatherings, etc.  It's sort of like a reality lookahead or simulation.

Just as simulation is helpful for engineering, perhaps it might be helpful for human interaction also.


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