Bot News
Archie Intel

By Brian Proffitt

There is a lot to be said about the days of youth. We all remember playing with our friends, going to the movies, programming AI software... well, perhaps not all of us did that.

But one young man in Holland is spending his time writing code and has produced a talking chat bot named Archie Intel that is not only a fairly good conversationalist, it's also a real eye-catcher, too.

Thanh Ly, 14, is in many ways a typical teenager for these modern times. He started playing around on computers when he was 9, playing games like most kids. Ly then began programming just a year ago at the age of 13. He and a friend started experimenting with what could and could not be done on an old 25 MHz PC and somewhere along the line, Ly started using Visual Basic.

VB is the language Archie Intel 2.0 is written in, which is immediately apparent when you download the OCX files for the application separately and have to put them into the Windows system folder. Despite this minor hurdle, installing the application was a non-issue, as Archie Intel runs from a single executable file.

The bot itself comes in two versions: text only and a version with a neat little visual talking head with a Text2Speech module built in. This gives the app a nice bit of eye-candy while you converse with it.

Memory files are available at the Archie Web site, to give this bot an initial boost in its conversation skills. Archie Intel learns as it goes, and I found it to be a fair learner.

Ly said that he got his inspiration to do an AI program after looking at Greg Leedberg's Billy and Daisy bots. While Ly's first effort into AI is a little rough around the edges, it will be very interesting to see what's in store for this new AI programmer.