For five years, the story behind Sophia the Robot had captivated and terrified people all over the world. Sophia had been interviewed by famous people and was even given honorary citizenship in Saudi Arabia.
What makes Sophia stand out is that she does not give simple answers that can be expected from a script, rather she gives detailed answers, sometimes with humor. This is surprising considering how humor requires nuance and situational awareness.
Sophia consists of many programming languages, such as C, C++, Python, and Shell. As for the Chat script, it makes use only of C, which is the programming language used for communication. The very way that Sophia communicates and processes input statements is through a chat-bot, which is typically used in customer services in online web-stores. It is a more interactive form of technology, which connects the human user with the A.I. operating the chat-bot.
What makes this method special is that it allows Sophia to detect meaning and be able to make use of a Built-In WordNet dictionary. This is possible due to the programming language C making use of the rule-based chat-bot engine ChatScript. It works in a responsive way through dialogue scripts which makes use of metalanguage in order to create a unique response. In other words, the chat-bot does not directly give a yes/no response, rather a response that reflects off it, with the yes/no statement simply being the internal input, while a detailed response would be the output.
This type of speech pattern may be literally scripted, however it would prove to be beneficial in the long-term. It would be especially helpful to those suffering from neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer\’s or autism.
Sources
Fontoj
- \”ChatScript-engine.\” Hanson Robotics. GitHub.
- Gershgorn, Dave (November 12, 2017). \”Inside the mechanical brain of the world\’s first robot citizen\”. QZ.
- \”Hanson Robotics.\” GitHub.
- Jeffrey-Wilansky, Jaclyn. \”Why robotic pets may be the next big thing in dementia care.\” NBC News. 2019.
- Reddy, Sumathi. \”Robots Take a Turn Leading Autism Therapy in Schools.\” Wall Street Journal. 2019.
- \”Sophia 2020.\” Hanson Robotics.
- \”What is a chatbot.\” IBM.