A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access 37th annual European Simulation and Modelling Conference Fernando Tricas Garc´ ıa [email protected] https://webdiis.unizar.es/~ftricas/ October, 26th, 2023 A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Agenda Introduction The proposal Some lessons, conclussions A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

The proposal We would like: ▶ Getting information from several IoT devices (machines, ...) ▶ We will attach a chatbot to each relevant device ▶ No modifications in the original system ▶ Very flexible way of obtaining information A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

The proposal We would like: ▶ Getting information from several IoT devices (machines, ...) ▶ We will attach a chatbot to each relevant device ▶ No modifications in the original system ▶ Very flexible way of obtaining information ▶ Chatbots can be a good way to interact with IoT devices. ▶ Sometimes there can be good reasons to have more than one chatbot ▶ Cooperation/coordination is a good property. A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

The proposal So, we are proposing: ▶ An architecture for several chatbots ▶ Users interacting with them ▶ Interaction between bots ▶ Requesting actions for other bots ▶ Collecting the replies. ▶ Lightweight, and it can use public infrastructure providing an easy way to start a project with it. A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

The architecture A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

The architecture ▶ Several computers attached to different machines ▶ Each of them is connected to a communication channel Telegram, Slack, Discord, Gitter, IRC, ... ▶ Users can connect to some of these communication channels (or many). ▶ Adding more information sources =⇒ adding more bots. ▶ It’s up to us select the channels. A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Coordination and Cooperation ErrForward backend ▶ Using Command and Control (C&C) techniques. A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Example A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Bot actions When a bot receives a request from some user it will check if it can fulfil the command: ▶ If it can, it will: 1. Execute the action, 2. Write a message to the user with the reply. A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Bot actions ▶ if not, it will post the command to the common channel and it will wait to see if there is a reply. fw temp A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Bot actions ▶ if not, it will post the command to the common channel and it will wait to see if there is a reply. fw temp A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Bot actions ▶ if not, it will post the command to the common channel and it will wait to see if there is a reply. fw temp ▶ The other bots will read this command and check whether they can execute it or not: 1. Do I know this command? 2. Can I execute this command with these parameters? A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Bot actions ▶ Hopefully, one of them will be able to execute it, so it will: 1. Delete the message requesting the action from the channel. 2. Execute the action. 3. Write a new message in the common channel which embeds the reply. A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Bot actions ▶ Hopefully, one of them will be able to execute it, so it will: 1. Delete the message requesting the action from the channel. 2. Execute the action. 3. Write a new message in the common channel which embeds the reply. A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Bot actions Each one of the other bots, will be able to read (while available) the reply and will check if: ▶ Is this reply for me? Hopefully, one of them will be the originator of the command. It will then: 1. Delete the message with the reply. 2. Write a message to the requesting user with the information. A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

We wanted to have a bot, but not to program a bot ErrBot https://errbot.io/ A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

errbot ▶ Simple to build upon ▶ Batteries included ▶ Sharing ▶ Community A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

errbot ▶ Simple to build upon Extending Errbot and adding your own commands can be done by creating a plugin, . . . ▶ Batteries included ▶ Sharing ▶ Community A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

errbot ▶ Simple to build upon ▶ Batteries included Multiple server backends ▶ Sharing ▶ Community A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

errbot ▶ Simple to build upon ▶ Batteries included ▶ Sharing ▶ Community ▶ Free Software // Libre Software https://github.com/errbotio/errbot/ A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

But it had some limitations A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

So we developed a plugin for this Parasitic infrastructure A plugin, using the standard mechanism. https://github.com/fernand0/err-forward ▶ Slack (Proof of concept) A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Some lessons ▶ The interface is important (CLI) ▶ Text based ▶ Commands must be well thought in order to be practical and useful (easy to type, short, meaningful...) ▶ Concurrence issues have been managed ▶ Many of them delegated to the infrastructure A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Conclusions ▶ We can have access to the information from several places (mainly Telegram, IRC) ▶ Easy to manage and to get access to the information (think local, use anywhere) ▶ Scalable Moreover... (not only IoT) ▶ APIs are important to access information. Web scrapping too. A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access

Any questions, suggestions, ideas, ... [email protected] A proposal for federated chatbots for distributed information access