Artificial intelligence is the technology of the future. It has exploded onto the world ever since it was first developed, and the technology has since been implemented in a lot of fields, ranging from healthcare to warfare. AI looks all set to stay and is sure to play a huge role in how the future of humanity is shaped.
However, it should be noted that AI was not always developed using popular languages today. Currently, Python and R represent the most popular languages which are used in machine learning and consequently, in AI too. However, there are a lot of other languages and methods which were used at times to various ends.
AIML was one such language which was used in the development of early chatbots. Digital assistants or chatbots truly represent the dawn of a new chapter in the scientific advancements of humankind. Chatbots are now increasingly becoming a part of most companies, and most of the internet users have already interacted with a chatbot in some form or other.
Being an AI aficionado or a prospective practitioner, you can surely try to build a chatbot from scratch in order to gain some practice in Artificial Intelligence.
What is AIML?
Artificial Intelligence Markup Language or AIML was created by Dr Richard Wallace and is currently offered as an open source framework for developing chatbots. It is offered by the ALICE AI Foundation so that users can create intelligent chatbots for their use from scratch.
AIML is an extremely simple XML, just like HyperText Markup Language or HTML. It contains a lot of standard tags and tags which are extensible, which you use in order to mark the text so that the interpreter which runs in the background understands the text you have scripted.
If you want the chatbot to be intelligent, it is important to have a content interface through which you can chat. Just like XML functions, AIML also characterizes rules for patterns, and decide how to respond to the user accordingly. AIML has several elements in them, including categories, patterns, and templates.
Categories are the fundamental units of knowledge which are used by the AIML and is further divided into the two other elements mentioned above – templates and patterns. In layman’s terms, patterns represent the questions asked by the user to the chatbot, or what the chatbot perceives as questions which need to be responded to.
The templates are the answers which it remembers based on its training, and which are subsequently modified and presented as replies to the users. Template elements basically include text formatting for the responses, conditional responses taught to it including many if/else scenarios and random responses which always come in handy while interacting with a user.
AIML is now open source, and users can start to create a chatbot by learning the fundamentals of the language. If you find yourself yearning to know more about this and AI in general, you should check out the many artificial intelligence courses on offer at Imarticus Learning.
