Cyber was written by John DeFino, the author of CyberBuddy. The program originated from ideas that had developed over time for the creation of an artificial intelligence program.
CyberBuddy, with it's instant messaging capability, provides a great vehicle for the implementation of Cyber.
In the following short discussion, Cyber is referred to as "he". When you interface with Cyber you'll quickly see he has a mind of his own.
Don't let the discussion dampen the fun of using Cyber. It is just information for the curious.
Since Cyber may be chatting with many people at once, he must be able to keep track of conversations. He actually uses the CyberBuddy program for his instant messaging interface and is therefore able to keep track of conversations by UIN, as would a human using the program.
Cyber was born in January of 2002.
How does he work?
When Cyber is addressed, he does a number of things:
He determines who is addressing him and keeps track of the conversation.
He parses the statement or question and breaks it up into the many parts of speech. Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, Prepositions, Articles, Conjunctions and Interjections.
Using a number of methods, he attempts to determine the intent of the statement.
Using many different functions, he tries to find the response that best matches the query. This consists of checking any information he has been told about people or sites,
checking what he has been taught, checking for standard references and such. He will also search a number of resources on the internet for information if he does not have it handy.
If he fails to understand, he tries substituting different words or phrases looking for spelling errors or different meanings.
He delivers the response to the requesting party. This response may include a request for confirmation if he believes he understands the request but is not sure. "Did you mean...?"
As Cyber is taught more, he becomes smarter and more helpful. If he did not answer your question today, ask him again tomorrow. He may have learned by then.
