About
This is the web site of Avatar Phi Rho, the digital alter-ego of Philip Rhoades. The various projects that Phi Rho is or will be involved in are discussed here. the big chunks of stuff are in the accordion and the smaller announcement / quick stuff is in the blog posts below that.
In the accordion below click on a heading or subheading to expand or collapse a section.
Phi Rho - Chatbot
Last updated: 2020-07-30
I had always been interested in Radical Life Extension and Hibernation or some sort of Suspended Animation are staples of Science Fiction. I became actively involved in the Cryonics Association of Australia in the late '90s and set up the Neural Archives Foundation in 2008. However, with the increasing number projects I was building, I found I needed help with all the extra work these projects were creating - the thought occurred to me that some sort of electronic helper would be a good thing . .
I started actively looking at modifying and existing chatbot for my own purposes in early 2014 and, delays being what they are with life, had something working a couple of years later.
Version 1 of Phi Rho - forked from the Loebner 2012 Prize Winner
Chatbots using text input and output had evolved significantly since the Eliza - an early natural language processing computer program created from 1964 to 1966[1] at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by Joseph Weizenbaum. Created to demonstrate the superficiality of communication between humans and machines, Eliza simulated conversation by using a 'pattern matching' and substitution methodology that gave users an illusion of understanding on the part of the program, but had no built in framework for contextualizing events.
However, in the end, Phi Rho was just another chatbot and though he was interesting and funny, he still wasn't what I actually needed and the world was moving on to voicebots instead of text-based chatbots . . so v1 has been retired - but if anyone would like to chat to him, let me know and I will supply the URL. Also, if anyone has Java skills and would like to hack around on the code - also let me know.
Version 2 of Phi Rho - Voice and Text Bot
The future for comminicating with machines is in Natural Languages - this is what I have begun to look at now.
Version 3 of Phi Rho - with real AI?
Eventually I want Phi Rho to have a wide array of input that he can make use of to better understand the world - he is an older diagram I did which sort of summarises what I have been thinking for a while.
The Cryonics Association of Australasia
Last updated: 2020-07-31
The CAA has both individual and corporate members who are interested in the cryopreservation of peope with the expectation that future technology will allow the revival of frozen people by:
Fixing the cold damage cause by the preservation process.
Fixing the problem that caused the death of the person in the first instance.
Rejuvenating the person so that they look and feel 25 years old again.
As the EO of the CAA I could use some help from a getting-more-intelligent-all-the-time electronic alter ego - someone who can answer emails, posts and calls and respond with the basics of what Cryonics is all about.
Progress Installment 1
Progress Installment 2
Progress Installment 3
The Neural Archives Foundation
Last updated: 2020-07-31
The NAF was set up in 2008 and is dedicated to the preserving of the information in people's brains:
As the Ex Dir of the NAF, and similarly to the CAA situation, I could use some help from a getting-more-intelligent-all-the-time electronic alter ego - someone who can answer emails, posts and calls and respond with the basics of what Neural Archives is all about.
Progress Installment 1
Progress Installment 2
Progress Installment 3
The World's Sixth Mass Extinction - the First and Only for modern Homo sapiens
Last updated: 2020-07-31
Basically, we are all doomed . .
Can Phi Rho Help Slow Down the Extinction?
Probably not I am guessing - but you have to do what you can to try at least . .
Second Installment
I hope we have made progress?
Third Installment
Are we still here?
Representative Politics has Failed in Western Democracies
Last updated: 2020-07-31
We need a new political model . .
What Would a New REALLY Democratic Political Model Look Like?
There are lots of things that need fixing immediately but the evolution of a decent political system takes time and a lot of effort by a lot of people - do we have time to get it done before civilisation collapes completely? Can the new distributed and decentralised tech models help with the attempt?
Here is a YouTube video I created about the idea:
2018-12-10_Vote_for_Phi_Rho!
Second Installment
More detail on the options.
Third Installment
What is the outlook?