Google Chat Bot

Unfortunately this project no longer works. It relied on the Google Search API and Google has decided to shut that down, so no more Chat bot. You can have a look at my twitter bot, which does something similar but using the twitter API.

The idea was quite simple: A user types in a few words and the program searches at Google for those words and looks at what the most common next word is in the those search results. It will then remove the first word from the search string and add the new word to it and repeat the operation, searching for a three or four word sentence each time.

It essentially uses Google as a hidden markov model to generate text. Google indexes all the web so has a pretty good idea of the relative frequency of words. Unfortunately Google also took away our nice toy. There's some results below though.

In the examples below, the seed text in bold, what Google returns is not. You can use Google Talk as an oracle by starting sentences and have Google Talk finish them. For example:

You want to know what a good programmer is, so you type: a good programmer is.
Google Talk answers: A good programmer is a lazy programmer
Or, you want to know how to better the world
Better the world by consolidating character in societies, families, and individuals

Also, you can find out who stars in a movie by typing the name of the movie followed by starring:
The Godfather starring Marlon Brando Al Pacino James Caan, Robert Duvall, Arthur Hill, Bo Hopkins, Mako, Gig Young. Dir. Sam Peckinpah. Folded Price
It starts to trash after while

Or have Google Talk write your contracts:
not plagiarized from any other source. for any reason. whatsoever. including but not LIMITED to the following: A.