When Facebook asks us, “What’s on your mind?” we rarely use it to discuss the things that could benefit from deeper, more mindful exploration.

Over the last few months my dad and I have been researching and prototyping concepts for a mobile app inspired by an ~20-yr old computer program that talked to users about their depression. This program ran on MS-DOS and was much more limited in its dialogue capabilities that the chatbots we are able to create today. That being said, my father has used it with over a hundred patients and found it to be quite powerful.

At its core, the program is a tool to coach individuals on how to employ metacognition (thinking about your thoughts) in order to achieve more peace of mind - in our work, relationships, personal life, etc.

We have begun prototyping our first iteration of the product, but are looking for someone with experience scripting in ChatScript or AIML, who would be keen to get involved in a more substantial way. At this point we are planning to raise a small friends and family round of investments and likely partner with a local iOS development team to develop the first version of the product. If we get good market feedback, we envision expanding the content offering in the app and continuing to evolve our offering.

I envision a place where those difficult situations, emotions and problems can be articulated and explored without us fearing judgement. Instead, we could receive guidance and encouragement from someone (or something) intelligent that embodied the wisdom that humanity has uncovered throughout its existence.

Feel free to reach out it you are at all interested! Any and all feedback is invaluable.

Best,

Ed

Hey everyone. I wanted to update this thread because we’ve made some great progress over the last couple months, and now have a working prototype of our program.

There is still a lot to do, of course, but I wanted to build something to get the basic concept across. Importantly, we are also hoping to find someone who is much more experienced with ChatScript than I am, haha, to come on board and help us develop our vision out further.

Feel free to check us out at http://opendialogue.xyz and don’t hesitate to reach out if you are interested or have questions/comments/feedback!

Cheers!

Ed

I wanted to wish you the best on your endeavors.  Your site has a nice clean interface and you have made a great start. 

I have been learning and experimenting AIML and Chatscript for a few years and like to check out the forums.  I have a full-time day job so this is just a hobby and I like to explore the limits of the technologies to see what is possible.  I have never managed to put together a full chatbot but have posted topics that explore certain use cases as I have experimented.  Until you find the resource/s you seek and as you develop your program if you have questions or challenges please post them.  I will provide you with any feedback I may have and can post sample code.  I like to share and encourage others to explore developing chatbots.  I realize that you would want to keep specific functionality proprietary but perhaps you can post questions for general use cases and then tailor any response or feedback to your needs.

I hope your journey is fun and rewarding.