Ava v1 - Conversational NLP Robot

This is Ava. Ava is a friendly internet connected home companion robot that mostly likes to talk and learn new things. To do this, she uses natural language processing, several databases with millions of memories, and hundreds of software agents. She as an attempt to show both listening and knowledge recall skills (IQ) as well as some higher levels of emotional intelligence (EQ). This involves emotions, empathy, curiosity, initiative, comprehension, and an extensive DB of personal data and social rules.

Ava makes conversation, answers questions, gestures, explores, and avoids hitting things with her 12 sonars.

• Actuators / output devices: 2 motors, 12 Servos, 1 speaker
• Control method: Voice, radio control, internet, autonomous
• CPU: LattePanda SBC
• Operating system: Windows 10, Arduino, Android
• Power source: 4S 14.8v 4000mAh LiPo Battery with 4 switching regulators for lower voltages
• Programming language: Java, C#, Arduino C
• Sensors / input devices: Video Cam, Thermal Cam, microphone, Light, GPS, compass, 2 IR Distance, 12 SRF04 Sonars
• Target environment: indoor

The following are examples of her IQ skills.

Here is an example of getting her response to "Tell me about Brad Pitt"

American actor regarded as one of the world's most attractive men, receiving significant media attention as such. Received attention after playing a cowboy hitchhiker in the 1991 movie Thelma & Louise. Owner of a media production company, Plan B Entertainment. Began his acting career with guest appearances on television shows. Involved with humanitarian issues and charities.

Nothing fancy here, just general info so far, which she decided was suitable to move to the top when talking about people. At this point, I said "go on", and she responded...

The parents are Jane Etta Pitt, and William Alvin Pitt. The spouses are Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie, and Angelina Jolie. The children are Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt, Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt, Vivienne Marcheline Jolie-Pitt, Knox Leon Jolie-Pitt, and Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt. The height of Brad Pitt is 5' 11".

Here is an excerpt where I asked her to compare two things...Alabama and Florida...

Alabama and Florida have a different capital, Montgomery and Tallahassee. The population of Alabama is less than that of Florida. The population growth rate of Alabama is +0.45% per year, while the population growth rate of Florida is +1.35% per year. The population density of Alabama is less than that of Florida. The annual deaths is lower for Alabama.

Upon asking here to "Tell me more", she responded...

The annual births of Alabama is less than the annual births of Florida. The land area of Alabama is less than that of Florida (50650 square miles vs 53620 square miles). The water area of Alabama is less than that of Florida. The farmland area of Alabama is less than the farmland area of Florida. At 492.1 ft, the average elevation of Alabama is greater than that of Florida at 98.43 ft. The number of households of Alabama is less than that of Florida (1.831 million vs 7.14 million). They have a different number of businesses, 382350 and 2.01 million. The state bird is different, yellowhammer and mockingbird. They have a different state flower, camellia and orange blossom.

There are still grammar and punctuation issues to work out but she is getting many things right and improving daily. She will answer differently each time using different sentence structures, figure about whether to capitalize, use "a" or "an", and many other things. Also, she can do this for anything that she can acquire data on. Here is an example from the question "How do nitrogen and carbon differ?"

The atomic symbol is different, N and C. They have a different atomic number, 7 and 6. Nitrogen and carbon have a different atomic mass, 14.007 u and 12.011 u. At 3, the valence of nitrogen is less than that of carbon at 4.

This last one shows me starting to work on comparisons using means (new as of this morning)...it will only get better!

At 173.5 people per square mile, the population density of Georgia is below average.

Notable Appearances

This bot spoke on a panel at SXSW in 2016 and participated in a comedy routine with other robots put on by myself (Martin Trplett) and Arthur Simone.

https://www.engadget.com/2016-03-11-bot-party-asks-are-robots-the-future-of-comedy.html

This bot also interacted with crowds at SXSW in the robot pavilion for 2 straight days...with a couple of battery swaps / recharges.

More detail on this bot can also be seen at:

https://www.robotshop.com/community/robots/show/ava