Semantic memory for avatars in cyberspace

Avatars that show intelligent behavior should have an access to general knowledge about the world, knowledge that humans store in their semantic memories. The simplest knowledge representation for semantic memory is based on the concept description vectors (CDVs) that store, for each concept, an information whether a given property can be applied to this concept or not. Unfortunately large-scale semantic memories are not available. Experiments with automatic creation of concept description vectors from various sources, including ontologies, dictionaries, encyclopedias and unstructured text sources are described. Haptek-based talking head that has an access to this memory has been created as an example of a humanized interface (HIT) that can interact with Web pages and exchange information in a natural way. A few examples of applications of an avatar with semantic memory are given, including the twenty questions game and automatic creation of word puzzles