Capable of providing unique answers to different people and even wishing someone a happy birthday on the proper date, the automated response program “Pai Plurk” is quickly turning into the hottest Plurking bot with users of the popular Internet-based social platform.
The social-networking Web site that has become increasingly popular with Taiwanese includes a number of functions, such as weather forecasts, fortune-telling and horoscope predictions — and -automated response programs.
Created on March 29 last year, Pai Plurk has seen highs of 100 new friends added daily. Its total number of friends is now about 90,000.
Photo: Chen Yi-ching, Taipei Times
Creator Chou Jiou-shan (周久善) said Pai Plurk was the result of his experiments with automated coding.
Pai Plurk uses a database that involves 350 kinds of response and 500 keywords for more accurate responses, Chou said, adding that the program also emphasized its responses using emoticons and punctuation, and that it sometimes had a sense of humor.
“If you type ‘right?’ the program would respond with: ‘You might want to Google that,’ or ‘Don’t ask, it’s terrible,’” Chou said.
Pai Plurk automatically generates hugs for sad Plurk messages and chats with you when you’re bored.
Renowned novelist Chen Wen-hsuan (陳玟瑄), who writes under the pseudonym Yu Wo (御我), is known to have been delighted with some of the responses provided by Pai Plurk.
Chou said that despite their awareness that Pai Plurk was nothing more than an automated program, many Plurkers still engaged in long “conversations” with it and asked it questions on a wide range of topics.
Some netizens have even created a look-for-Pai-Plurk application to make it more “substantial” — an idea Chou said made him “warm and fuzzy inside.”
“I think a lot of netizens need a virtual friend and that makes me feel responsible,” he said. “I hope Pai Plurk will always be there for everyone.”
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