4 ms·

I actually built an IRC bot that did this once. It searched reddit for your question, took the first result, and posted the top comment. It worked very well for

I actually built an IRC bot that did this once. It searched reddit for your question, took the first result, and posted the top comment. It worked very well for certain kinds of questions. Especially if it came from the better subreddits like askscience, but even just reddit in general. I improved on it a lot with a whitelist of subreddits and some machine learning to select the best thread. But I was only touching on what is possible with that data. The scope of the discussions on reddit is huge. Despite a lot of jokes in the comments here, the quality of the comments on average, is pretty decent. And the metadata like subreddit and score are extremely useful for filtering it down more.

ilyaeck 11y ago
I'd be very interested to learn more about your project and findings. Is that bot still alive?
- Houshalter 11y ago
  I turned it back on for the time being. It can be found at irc.snoonet.org at #mybots https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.snoonet.org/mybots https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.snoonet.org/mybots EDIT: Reddit changed their api, give me a moment to fix it. EDIT2: It works now!
  - ilyaeck 11y ago
    AMAbot - is that the one?
    - Houshalter 11y ago
      Yes. It automatically replies to anything you say in the chat on that channel.
bl4ckdu5t 11y ago
If it's open source I'll love to take a look
- Houshalter 11y ago
  I pastebined the code. It's terrible. I should rewrite it. But here it is: http://pastebin.com/CM9u17jq http://pastebin.com/CM9u17jq
  - jetpm 11y ago
    Nice, I see you use neural networks, can you explain a bit how you are training them?
    - Houshalter 11y ago
      It searches reddit for whatever the user queries. Reddit returns up to 100 threads. I then choose a thread and take the top comment. The neural network predicts which thread is most likely to produce a satisfying answer. The main features are number of n-gram matches with the question, the score, the number of comments, and some other metadata. It's far from optimal but it does improve it a bit.
Houshalter 11y ago
Sample of conversation with it. Not cherry picked, just showing some of the good and the bad: https://i.imgur.com/LDD9isL.png?1 https://i.imgur.com/LDD9isL.png?1
- mcintyre1994 11y ago
  This is awesome, I love the "current drama on reddit" answer..
- avinassh 11y ago
  awesome! how does one get started programming 'intelligent' things? I know how to program, haven't coded anything that is 'intelligent'. I would really love to know what all the things/concepts I should know to build a bot like yours. Thanks!

ilyaeck 11y ago

I'd be very interested to learn more about your project and findings. Is that bot still alive?

Houshalter 11y ago
I turned it back on for the time being. It can be found at irc.snoonet.org at #mybots https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.snoonet.org/mybots https://kiwiirc.com/client/irc.snoonet.org/mybots EDIT: Reddit changed their api, give me a moment to fix it. EDIT2: It works now!
- ilyaeck 11y ago
  AMAbot - is that the one?
  - Houshalter 11y ago
    Yes. It automatically replies to anything you say in the chat on that channel.

bl4ckdu5t 11y ago

If it's open source I'll love to take a look

Houshalter 11y ago
I pastebined the code. It's terrible. I should rewrite it. But here it is: http://pastebin.com/CM9u17jq http://pastebin.com/CM9u17jq
- jetpm 11y ago
  Nice, I see you use neural networks, can you explain a bit how you are training them?
  - Houshalter 11y ago
    It searches reddit for whatever the user queries. Reddit returns up to 100 threads. I then choose a thread and take the top comment. The neural network predicts which thread is most likely to produce a satisfying answer. The main features are number of n-gram matches with the question, the score, the number of comments, and some other metadata. It's far from optimal but it does improve it a bit.

Houshalter 11y ago

Sample of conversation with it. Not cherry picked, just showing some of the good and the bad: https://i.imgur.com/LDD9isL.png?1 https://i.imgur.com/LDD9isL.png?1

mcintyre1994 11y ago
This is awesome, I love the "current drama on reddit" answer..
avinassh 11y ago
awesome! how does one get started programming 'intelligent' things? I know how to program, haven't coded anything that is 'intelligent'. I would really love to know what all the things/concepts I should know to build a bot like yours. Thanks!