Build Your Own AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Assistant 101
Introduction: Build Your Own AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Assistant 101
Remember the time, when you were watching Iron Man and wondered to yourself,
how cool it would be if you had your own J.A.R.V.I.S? Well, It's time to make that
dream into a reality.

Artificial intelligence is the next gen. Imagine how cool it would be if you had your
friends over at your house, and all of a sudden you go, "Hey JARVIS, show me some
memes.", and JARVIS goes "Sure, sir. Here are the latest Italian memes.", whilst
showing you the funniest Italian memes. Cool right?

(Your friends would look up to you like you are Elon Musk.)

In this Instructable, I will show you how to build your very own Artificial Intelligence
(AI) assistant using a free online tool (YAAY!) called API.AI

UPDATE 12/12/17 : API.AI has changed its name to "Dialogflow", but the
working procedure and concept is still the same.

I will be going only through the basics, as the possibilities of API.AI is endless. My
aim is to build an Assistant JARVIS who will respond to basic conversation like
greetings, and can crack a few jokes. However, you can add features such as getting
the weather details, setting alarms and much more.

API.AI is an organization that specializes in Artificial Intelligence and Natural

Language Processing. It was acquired by Google (Hence the free) in 2014 and helps
developers (You da Tony Stark now!) make AI assistants for a variety of needs. Its
dynamic and easy to use interface allows everyone to develop bots for businesses,
games, and much more. And now..

Enough Talk! Let's change the World!

P.S: I have added a .zip file of the AI that I'll be making in this tutorial (Refer Step 8)
which you can upload and use as a head-start while toying with API.AI (or) you could
start from scratch and go along with me :)
P.S.2 : It would give me great joy if you would vote this Instructable for the First-
Time Author Contest. It's simple. Just click on the VOTE button xD. Thanks a Million
!

Step 1: API.AI - What Can It Do?

API.AI is a framework for developing Artificial Intelligence bots that makes use of
'Natural Language Processing" (NLP). But what exactly is Natural language
processing?

Consider this example,

You are in your first day of school learning Trigonometry (Tony Stark stuffs). You
have no prior knowledge as to what the subject is about, what kind of questions you
will be asked, or how to answer them. You know nothing! (Game of Thrones
reference :P). Soon your teacher teaches you how to solve ONE kind of a problem,
and you find that you can solve that problem on your own. You also find that you are
able solve, on your own, all problems that follow a similar pattern, to the problem
taught by your teacher. This is exactly how API.AI works.

In the beginning, your Assistant (a.k.a Bot, Friend, etc) starts afresh with no
knowledge. By teaching your Assistant how to reply to specific phrases, you make the
your Assistant self adaptable, such that it learns how to respond to those specific
phrases, as well as other phrases that convey the same meaning.

API.AI is also super versatile i.e, your bots can be deployed to various platforms that
support AI, with a single click. They also provide SDK's for Python, Ruby, C++, and
much more. Facebook Messenger, Kik, Slack, Google Assistant, are a few
examples, into which you can deploy your bot. Consider it as bonus, being able to
control your Assistant via voice, as well as a text service. (Everything is Awesome!)

Step 2: Getting Started

(The previous step was more like a Step 0 :P)

So you're finally ready to make your own .

Let's begin by heading over to API.AI. On this minimalist cool page, click on "Sign
Up For Free", and once the page loads, tap "Sign In" and login using your Google
Account credentials.
You will be greeted with a Terms of Service page after authentication. Click on
"Accept".

You are now in the Console (A fancy word for Work-space) where you will manage
and make your own AI Assistant.

In API.AI, Assistants are commonly referred to as "Agents". An Agent as a whole is

your Assistant (Bot, etc.).For example, Siri as a whole is an Agent. Google assistant,
Cortana, Siri, etc, are all different kinds of agents, having different personalities,
based on how You (the Developer), programs them.

Click on "Create Agent" inside the blue box, below the Introductory video to make
your very first Agent (I will be referring to the AI Assistant as Agent or by "JARVIS"
from now on.)

P.S: Watch the Introductory video to get a better idea on the features API.AI offers.

Step 3: Birth of Your AI

Once you click on "Create Agent", you will be presented with a screen, to add basic
details of your Agent. My agent details is as follows, but you can customize it to suit
your needs:

 Agent Name: JARVIS

 Agent Description: Just Another Rather Very Intelligent System.

 Add Sample data: (Leave Blank)

 Language: English (API.AI supports many popular languages)

 Default Time Zone: (Choose your Location from the Drop Down)

You may choose to add sample data, such as Alarms, Easter Egg etc, but for the sake
of this tutorial, I will be making JARVIS from scratch so that you developers can
learn how to implement these features on your own. :D

Click on the "SAVE" button at the top-right to save your Agent. Get used to Saving
your agent often, as API.AI doesn't provide an Autosave feature, and you have to
manually save your agent every time changes are made.

CONGRATS!!! You now have your very own Assistant (Kinda) !!!
Step 4: Familiarizing Yourself With the Console
The Console is where all the magic happens.

The bar in the left (Intents, Entities, etc) is where you get to train your bot to respond
to phrases a User might ask. The "Test Console" on the right is where you, as a user
will test your assistant, to see if it is giving the right response.

In this tutorial, our focus is only about 2 sections : INTENTS & ENTITIES

INTENTS: This is where you provide details of phrases a User might ask, and train
your Assistant on how to respond to those phrases.

ENTITIES: Consider these as variables that store data, which can be retrieved and
used later. API.AI provides a vast range of prebuilt entities such as location, time, etc.
You are also free to make your own entities to store names, movie lists, etc.

Default Fallback Intent: By now you must be wondering what the Default Fallback
Intent (DFI) on your screen is. The DFI is an Intent that will be triggered if your
Assistant fails to match the phrases said by the user. Think of it like you saying "I
Don't Know", when someone asks you a question you have no idea how to answer.

Since right now, your Assistant is like a baby with no knowledge, talking to it would
result in the DFI being triggered. Go ahead and try talking to it in the Test Console on
the right.

P.S: You can ignore the Default welcome Intent for now. It is also an Intent, often
used when integrated with FB Messenger, etc, and contains Phrases your bot would
say first to initiate a conversation, when it is called.

Step 5: Making Intents

Now is when things start getting real.

Click on "Create Intent", at the top of the console, to create you very first Intent.

I will be naming this Intent, "startconvo.Hi" (At the topmost blank), and the purpose
of this intent would be to respond to greetings such as Hi, Hello, etc.

Intents have 2 main sections:

USER SAYS: In this section, you'll provide various phrases a User may ask. The
more phrases you add, the better your Assistant can learn and respond to similar
phrases. (Try to add at least half a dozen phrases so that your Agent can understand
and can recognize other similar phrases.)

RESPONSE: Here, you'll provide answers for the said User phrases. You can add
multiple responses in this section, and your Agent will pick one at random.This is
done to avoid redundancy, and make the conversation more natural-like. Responses
can also be rich messages like Cards, Images, etc, that are displayed in devices that
support them. (Refer to docs for more info: Rich Messages)

For JARVIS this is what the 2 sections contain:

User Says : Hi, Hey, Hello, Yo

Responses : My man! , Hey! , Hi There! , Yo Dawg!

Don't forget to Save after adding changes.

YOU NOW HAVE AN AI ASSISTANT (YAAAAAAAY!!!). Try talking to it in the

test console.

P.S: If you are using Chrome Browser, you can click on the mic icon in the Test
Console to talk to your Agent and get your response.

P.S.2: Notice how JARVIS responds when I say "Hey Jarvis!" (or) "Hola Jarvis!"
even though I haven't fed that phrase in the User says section. (It's a Magic Trick! xD)

Step 6: Follow-up Intents

Now that you have an idea on how to make Intents, lets make some follow-up intents.

Follow up Intents, are a branch of a main Intent, that carry the conversation forward
deeper into a specific topic. For example, Your Agent could be showing you a Cat
Video, and if you say, "Show me more similar videos.", your Agent must show you
more Cat videos only, and not something else. Hence in such cases, Normal Intents
cannot be used as they refer to a much broader category. FOLLOW-UP INTENTS,
follows up on the context your conversation was heading.

Let's play around with follow up intents. Create an intent with the name "Jokes" and
populate the User says section with common phrases people say when they want to
hear a joke. Ex: "Tell me a Joke" , "Make me Laugh", etc. Fill in the Response section
with a few hilarious jokes. Don't forget to hit Save when done.

Now head over to the Intents tab, hover your mouse over the right side of the Jokes
Intent, and click on Add Follow-up Intent. From the drop down list, select "More",
and you will find a Follow-up Intent has been created under your Main Jokes intent.
The purpose of this Follow-up Intent is to give more jokes, when the User says,
"Another one". Hence, in this context, "Another one" means to tell another Joke (Not
DJ Khalid xD).

Note: Even though the user does not SAY Joke, he/she IMPLIES it.

The follow-up intent you have created is just like your normal Intent. Add phrases
how a User would ask for more Jokes, and fill in the Response section, with the same
Jokes you used in the Main Intent.

Voila. You now have an Assistant, who is your personal Stand-up Comedian :)

Step 7: Adding Entities

Now that you have a talking Agent, let's teach it your name! (I will be using API.AI's
inbuilt entities to keep this tutorial short, but you can add your own entities as well)

Create a new Intent and call it: Intro.mynameis

In the User says section, try adding the following phrases:

 My name is Antony
 I am Tony
 Call me Bruce

You will notice that, when you enter the above sentences, the names get highlighted
by a color, and are stored in an Entity called "sys.given-name". This is another one of
the many cool features API.AI offers. API.AI can recognize names, locations, time,
etc, from phrases and can categorize and store them into their pre-built Entities
automatically. (Such helps, Much Wows)

Some names may not be highlighted in the phrases, but you can add them to Entities
by highlighting only the information to be stored, and selecting the respective
Entity from the list.
In the Response section, you can call the values stored in the Entities, using the
syntax $entityname

For JARVIS, the Response section goes like: Hi $given-name! A pleasure to meet
you.

Step 8: Importing and Exporting Agents

Agents can be Imported/Exported, and it is always best to keep a copy of your agent
on your local machine, in case some unforeseen error occurs.

Like I mentioned in the Introduction. Here are the files of the Agent we just built
together. You can import the .zip file into API.AI and just follow along this crash
course, whilst eating spicy Doritos. (Your Welcome ;) )

 Download the .zip file provided below.

 Create a new Agent in API.AI, and click on the Gear icon next to your Agent
name, in the top left corner.
 Head over to the Export and Import tab, just below your Agent name.
 Choose Import from zip >> Select File >> and select the .zip file you had
downloaded.
 Type in "IMPORT" in the box provided below, and click on Import.
 You have successfully Imported an Agent. (Sounds like The Matrix, right?)

You can now customize the Agent to your needs, by adding Intents and Entities.

Attachments

 JARVIS.zip

Download

Step 9: Integrations and Other Stuffs

INTEGRATIONS

API.AI offers one click integrations so you can deploy your app to various services
such as Facebook Messenger, Google Assistant, Kik, Slack, etc. The process for
implementing them vary across services, so here's the link to a detailed guide on how
to implement them: Integrations with API.AI
The most common method of Integrating your Agent as a chatbot is to use the API.AI
web interface.

 Click on the Integrations tab in the left hand side of the Console

 Under the One-click Integrations, toggle the Web Demo switch.
 Use the link provided to talk to your chatbot, or embed it to a website, or share
it with the world.

Sharing the link with others helps you to understand how your Agent responds to
different kinds of conversation, and fix errors when encountered with random talks.

PRE-BUILT AGENTS

API.AI offers a wide range of pre-built Agents such as Home Automation, Car
System Control, Web Search, Flight Booking, etc, which can be imported as an
Agent into your console to use as a head-start while working on your Awesome agent.

To Import pre-built agents:

Head over to the Prebuilt Agents tab on the left hand side of the console >> Hover
over the Agent you wish to Import and click on Import >> Choose your Google
Project (Leave blank to create a new Project) and click on Proceed to Agent. You
have successfully imported a Prebuilt Agent.

Step 10: ...And That's a Wrap!

YOU'VE DONE IT. YOU'VE MADE YOUR VERY FIRST ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE ASSISTANT!!! I'm so proud :")

Anyways, it was great fun writing my Very First Instructable. Please do Like, Share
and Comment if you have any queries. Would be super glad to help!

Also comment down below if you liked this Instructable, or have suggestions on how
to improve my writing. :)

And also, Sorry for the long Post :P. Here's a Meme xD.

Spread Love and Happiness. I'll talk to you guys in the next one.

PEACE

(Subtle MKBHD Reference xD)

Participated in the
First Time Author Contest

10 People Made This Project!