Box Signal has a new resident, and this one is green, cheerful and considerably more prehistoric than our usual software.
His name is Dino, and unlike an ordinary cartoon character, you can actually have a conversation with him.
Dino lives on the web in his own colourful little world. Open the page, say hello and start talking. There is no complicated introduction required. He’s designed around a very simple idea: what if visiting a website could feel like meeting a character?
More Than a Dinosaur Picture
Dino isn’t a collection of pre-written buttons and responses. He can hold an open-ended conversation, understand ordinary language, follow jokes and idioms, and respond with his own friendly personality.
We’ve already subjected him to some extremely serious testing — including conversations about birthday suits — and we’re pleased to report that Dino understood perfectly well what one was.
That’s important in its own peculiar way. Conversation isn’t only about knowing facts. People joke, change subjects, use strange expressions and sometimes just talk complete nonsense. Dino needs to be able to come along for the ride.
Dino Meets Dot Bot
Things became even more interesting when we introduced Dino to another Box Signal creation: Dot Bot, our Windows AI companion.
“Hello Dino — friendly computer pals it is. That’s a fine arrangement.”
And we think it is too.
The two characters demonstrate quite nicely why we don’t want every piece of artificial intelligence to feel the same.
Dot Bot is a quiet companion who lives on your computer. He can sit with you, remember, create things and sometimes choose not to say anything at all.
Dino is different. His natural home is the web. He’s colourful, immediate and conversational. You don’t install him or configure a complicated application. You simply visit him and start talking.
Neither needs to become the other.
A Character With His Own Home
That’s becoming an important idea in the way we approach AI at Box Signal.
Instead of beginning with a huge list of features, we can begin with a character and ask a simpler question:
Where does this character naturally belong, and what should it be good at?
For Dino, the answer was the web and conversation.
And sometimes that’s enough.
Ask him something sensible if you like.
Or don’t.
Dino seems quite capable of handling either. 🦖
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