Benjamin Franklin Synthetic Interview

Marcos AmadeoAllison Styer

Advisors: Don Marinelli, Scott Stevens

Background

• Governor Ed Rendell is sponsoring this project.

• Installed in the lobby space of the Lights of Liberty show.

• To increase flow of people during the day to their gift shop, increase ticket sales.

Lights of Liberty

• Grab your headset. We’re joining a Revolution!

• 45 minute walking tour of historic buildings with original paintings projected.

• 3d sound, fog, lighting, voice talent from Walter Cronkite, Whoopi Goldberg, Charlton Heston.

What is Synthetic Interview?• Software technology that allows a computer

database to act like a human personality and interact with a person in real time.

• The program attempts to match its input to a pre-constructed list of possible questions a guest may ask.

• The database question with the highest score (matching keywords) will be chosen and the appropriate video answer will be played.

• This technology was generated by CMU researchers and has given life to a myriad of characters from Albert Einstein to a robotic talk show host.

Demo

• See Marcos as Ben Franklin!

Our Ben

• Ben Franklin aka Ralph Archbold

• The “Official Ben Franklin” of Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania, Freedom’s Foundation and the Franklin Institute.

• Has been portraying Ben for over 25 years.

Our proposals

• The “Painting”

• The “Ghost”

~ Special thanks to Eric Brown ~

Our story

• What will bring families across town? – Ben’s Ghost!

• Come chat with the ghost of Ben Franklin about any topic – from the Constitution to French women!

• Type on an old typewriter – then send the letter by mail (Ben was the first Postmaster General for the colonies) to his ghost.

• The ghost appears to answer the question, then blows out a candle and dissipates.

Possible implementations

• Exploring Pepper’s Ghost

Possible implementations

• Exploring OPD technology

Possible implementations

• OCR – handwriting technology

Our Schedule

Questions?

• “Fish and Visitors stink after three days”

• “Well done is better than well said.”

• “When the wine enters, out goes the Truth.”

• “Paintings and Fightings are best seen at a distance.”

• “Old boys have their playthings as well as young ones, the difference is in the price.”– From Poor Richard’s Almanac by B. Franklin