[alicebot-general] automated conversations (e.g., for online dating)

[Amir Michail]

Hi,

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.

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

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.

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?

Amir