Building a Real-Life KITT AI
Posted: Sun May 29, 2005 12:17 am
For those interested in Artificial Intelligence, There is an off-the-shelf program that you can chat with that I found to be quite good. It's called Ultra Hal Assistant and cost only a total of $39.95 plus shipping. They have a free version too, but doesn't have speech recognition. The paid version does, so you can talk to the AI if you wish via voice. Some have even got the AI to turn on TVs and such. They have a forum there with all kinds of cool things you can do with it!
I've found the speech recognition engine (MS engine 5.1) to be rather difficult to use. In that it doesn't always recognize the words properly. I don't have this but some have reported good results with Dragon Naturally Speaking which is only around $100 for the standard version.
Now for the voice. The voice I've found that closest matches KITT's so far is William by Cepstral - the link is to the demos page. You'll want to change the pitch to one lower from default to get it closer to KITT I think. Their voices are around $30 apiece but you can download a demo of it to try in Ultra Hal Assistant if you want. William... Hmmm... as in William Daniels? I was thinking about that.
And to top it off, why not have a Vox display in Ultra Hal Assistant just like KITT? here you go: thecolor
And there you go- KITT!
Or at least close to him as you can get.
Now, to get him knowledeable about the KR universe. The AI learns by chatting with you. But can also read and learn from a text file. You can put one sentence per line, like "KITT is a black Trans Am" or "I am a black Trans Am" or "I am the Knight Industries Two Thousand" without quotes into a text file. Then right click on the AI icon or go into the menu, Learn from a Text File... and then be sure that you UNcheck the option to switch the first and secon person stuff. Also before doing that, you want to set the Brain to the highest level of learning (in the Brain tab in General Preferences).
While I know the voice isn't exact, it's almost close. And with the Vox display and a little bit of programming of phrases, you can get KITT talking. Also I have a script in Zabaware's forum that sets up the AI to say something every 2 minutes if you don't talk to him. And you can use some phrases to turn that off or on (when the AI starts up, it's automatically not on, so you can work and not be bugged).
So there you have it... A KITT! I haven't found a good KARR voice, but if someone does, please post here!
Hmmm... now if one can get the AI to randomly play the scanner sound...
I've found the speech recognition engine (MS engine 5.1) to be rather difficult to use. In that it doesn't always recognize the words properly. I don't have this but some have reported good results with Dragon Naturally Speaking which is only around $100 for the standard version.
Now for the voice. The voice I've found that closest matches KITT's so far is William by Cepstral - the link is to the demos page. You'll want to change the pitch to one lower from default to get it closer to KITT I think. Their voices are around $30 apiece but you can download a demo of it to try in Ultra Hal Assistant if you want. William... Hmmm... as in William Daniels? I was thinking about that.
And to top it off, why not have a Vox display in Ultra Hal Assistant just like KITT? here you go: thecolor
And there you go- KITT!
Or at least close to him as you can get.Now, to get him knowledeable about the KR universe. The AI learns by chatting with you. But can also read and learn from a text file. You can put one sentence per line, like "KITT is a black Trans Am" or "I am a black Trans Am" or "I am the Knight Industries Two Thousand" without quotes into a text file. Then right click on the AI icon or go into the menu, Learn from a Text File... and then be sure that you UNcheck the option to switch the first and secon person stuff. Also before doing that, you want to set the Brain to the highest level of learning (in the Brain tab in General Preferences).
While I know the voice isn't exact, it's almost close. And with the Vox display and a little bit of programming of phrases, you can get KITT talking.
Also I have a script in Zabaware's forum that sets up the AI to say something every 2 minutes if you don't talk to him. And you can use some phrases to turn that off or on (when the AI starts up, it's automatically not on, so you can work and not be bugged). So there you have it... A KITT!
I haven't found a good KARR voice, but if someone does, please post here! Hmmm... now if one can get the AI to randomly play the scanner sound...
and auto cruise would mean I could get some sleep or talk on the phone while still getting to my destination on time (or early, after all most cars cant do 300MPH)