More Fun with Language

[maradydd]

I've spent a little time today amusing myself with Subservient Chicken, which some of you have posted about before. Rather than sending him silly or smutty commands, though, I'm stress-testing their parser by submitting things I think will be too obscure, just to see what happens.

So far, "flense a whale" has been the only one that got no response whatsoever. "Translate the Bible into Hindi" seemed to key onto either "Bible" or "Hindi", as the chicken got down on its knees and appeared to face Mecca and prostrate itself. Which, uh, has not much to do with the Bible or Hinduism, but the chicken's supposed to be subservient, not smart.

Have you given the Chicken any commands that were too out-there for it to comprehend? What were they?

No, really, I actually do wonder what sort of NL tech they've got going on the backend. It can't possibly just be a huge list of strings mapped to various AVIs. They're probably doing some kind of fuzzy matching, but I sure would like to know details.

Comments

[madbard.livejournal.com]

I think I saw a complete list of commands that the Chicken responds to. It doens't have much of a parser per se - just a series of keyword tuplets mapped to certain responses.

[d-floorlandmine.livejournal.com]

It was definitely challenged by "baste yourself".

I was bored, OK! [embarrassed grin] (Although flense a whale is somewhat inspired!)

[steer.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of the magic of the subservient chicken is in the user interpretation. If it doesn't understand it just rolls about or does something fairly random and you interpret it as an understanding (c.f. bible example) -- or that is my contention. My interpretation was that it didn't understand MOST of what I said but it usually did SOMETHING in response. A also tested things along the lines of "lie on that object at the back" or "could you move the left hand red thing" which it couldn't do.

[kwsapphire.livejournal.com]

"turn off the light" has him run around in circles. :D

[cassandrasimplx.livejournal.com]

do a little dance!
predictably, he does a little dance.
solo tango
he does a very recognizable tango, different from "a little dance"

concatenate furniture
jumps on the couch
concatenate strings
no response!

defenestrate
no response!

twiddle your thumbs
gives a thumbs-up
twiddle your willy
no response!

picture this
does a bizarre rapper dance (??)
visualize world peace
flashes a peace-sign
visualize whirled peas
no response!

note: second command to "picture this" got a completely different response, recognizably a painter at an easel squinting at a landscape, painting canvas, then squinting at canvas. Why did it change?

be
no response!

[michaelduff.livejournal.com]

CHICKEN VS. LINGUIST -- THEY WILL BATTLE IN A BATTLE WHERE THERE CAN BE NO WINNERS! WHO WILL WIN?

QUESTIONS WILL BE ASKED, AND DESTROYED, BY ANSWERS!

Adult Swim should be calling you any minute now.

[slithytove.livejournal.com]

LOWER THE THUNDERDOME!!!!

[deifire]

"Collect underpants" seemed to make it hide behind the sofa.