The Atomic Playboy and the Radiation Romeo

The button below will open a new browser window displaying the Flash interface for Atomic and Romeo (Version 16 with Preloader). You will find a page of introductory text, some instructions and then the interface where you can suggest a topic for conversation.





This version 16 uses the landscape layout, updates the heckler and end-of-conversation functions with an audio sign-off. All the features from previous versions remain - scroll bar control,custId variable allows me to better log and track conversations.


The chat-bots are hosted on the Pandorabots server under the Shared Service subscription. Please note, the terms of the Updated Policy Guidelines for Free Community Server state that the “Use of automated scripts to make your pandorabot talk to itself or another bot or script” is proscribed (Pandorabots 2011). This project is being developed with the agreement of the Pandorabots Inc management and we would like to acknowledge their support. ( Pandorabots )



Please leave a comment...

After you have had a play with Atomic and Romeo please use this link to leave a comment.
Maybe you could suggest a topic of conversation or a layout suggestion.
All suggestions gratefully received.




Tuesday, June 28, 2011

New chat bot characters

The very first play I wrote for Footlice Theatre Company was a one-act black(ish) comedy called 'The Atomic Playboy and the Radiation Romeo Fall in Love'. That was 1993.

Set in a student residence, it tells the story of a love triangle between the Atomic Playboy (a PhD student), the Radiation Romeo (an under-graduate student befriended by the Atomic Playboy) and the Thoroughly Post-Modern Milly (an undergraduate student who, as a post-modern gesture, only speaks in recognisable quotes).

For this project I'm considering bringing Atomic and Romeo back to life. Maybe only Romeo will actually be 'alive'. Atomic's back story is a bit more complicated. Atomic is dead. However, before he shuffled off this mortal coil, he had programmed a chat-bot with his 'wisdom' and witticisms. Romeo has faithfully kept Atomic going over the years by creating a chat-bot of himself for Atomic to talk to.

This set-up seems to have a couple of advantages. First, by fixing Atomic in time (his knowledge of the world has stalled in the mid 1990s - so 20th Century!) this allows him an idiosyncratic view of the world. Romeo, and the audience, know more of the world than he does. Second, it reverses the roles they played in the original script - the 'worldly' Atomic and the 'naive' Romeo. This is a good 'odd-couple' mix. Third, the unresolved romantic tension over their relationship with the 'Thoroughly Post-Modern Milly' is a nice piece of relationship business. Finally, as Romeo is still alive when the user is watching the interchange it's possible they could be seeing the 'human' Romeo conversing with Atomic or they could be watching the chat-bot 'Romeo' at work. This human / non-human character of Romeo will be introduced in the setup page of the chat-bot site.

The next production question is: How much 'standard' AIML should I use? As one of the recent comments pointed out the single sentence conversations are much more punchy and useful. Editing out all of the multiple sentence replies is tedious. However, starting completely from scratch ( an absolutely blank slate that doesn't even know how to respond to "Hello") could be equally time consuming. There is a certain purity to the blank slate...

Things to consider.


2 comments:

JOETEEVEE said...

Hi Mike

Just wanted to comment in passing, what a great title this is!

'The Atomic Playboy and the Radiation Romeo Fall in Love'.

I see Blake Snyder has almost a whole chapter in his excellent book on Screenwriting, SAVE THE CAT! on why titles are important - and what (in his opinion) a great one is.

He uses `Legally Blond' as an example... I'm just speaking from memory - but essentially he says a good title `tells you everything you need to know'... as in `Legally Blond' tells you: the genre (rom-com) and is funny in itself. It also tells you, who the story is about.

Anyway - your title does the same.

By a weird coincidence - around 1993 (must have been something in the air, radiation maybe) I had a vaguely-similar title for a play "The Adventures of Rationality Man and The Intuition Kid" (which ended up being part of a Uni Revue with Jamie Lewis doing an amazing job of directing, and Ross Carroll taking the role of `Rationality Man' into insanely-funny places I hadn't imagined imagining.)

Anyway, this was all long before Blake Snyder's fantastic book came out - but in retrospect is all kind of vaguely interesting. Perhaps only to me, but - there you go.

Cheers

Joe

JOETEEVEE said...

Hi Mike

Just wanted to comment in passing, what a great title this is!

'The Atomic Playboy and the Radiation Romeo Fall in Love'.

I see Blake Snyder has almost a whole chapter in his excellent book on Screenwriting, SAVE THE CAT! on why titles are important - and what (in his opinion) a great one is.

He uses `Legally Blond' as an example... I'm just speaking from memory - but essentially he says a good title `tells you everything you need to know'... as in `Legally Blond' tells you: the genre (rom-com) and is funny in itself. It also tells you, who the story is about.

Anyway - your title does the same.

By a weird coincidence - around 1993 (must have been something in the air, radiation maybe) I had a vaguely-similar title for a play "The Adventures of Rationality Man and The Intuition Kid" (which ended up being part of a Uni Revue with Jamie Lewis doing an amazing job of directing, and Ross Carroll taking the role of `Rationality Man' into insanely-funny places I hadn't imagined imagining.)

Anyway, this was all long before Blake Snyder's fantastic book came out - but in retrospect is all kind of vaguely interesting. Perhaps only to me, but - there you go.

Cheers

Joe