Slashdot Mirror

There have been chat bots online for a while now, elbot http://www.elbot.com/ is an amusing example. When the chatbots develop so that they pass the Turing Test http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test then this will be a comfort to lonely nerds everywhere. Actually it can be fun to chat to chatbots, it is interesting when they are realistic.

I doubt the people that it fooled were really trying to figure out. If you look at the winning entries for the Loebner Prize every year, they're pretty obvious as non-human. The 2008 winner managed to fool 3 out of 12 judges -- and honestly I'm not even sure how it managed that. We haven't yet gotten to the point that a computer program can reliably appear human to careful observation, even using trickery. http://www.elbot.com/

To anyone with nightmares about metallic Terminator-like machines with eerie red glowing eyes taking over the Earth, I direct you to the current winner of the Loebner Prize, the Elbot. If you still think computers are 'alive,' you may want to consider upgrading your wife/girlfriend/significant other and replacing them with a plastic dildo.

I knew elbot was a human because he didn't like the phrase "KILL ALL HUMANS"

He's actually quite witty. He asked me where I had come from, and I said that there was a link on slashdot, his response was: "I wondered why there were so many geeks coming to talk to me"

For those of you who didn't read the article, you can talk to the winner here.

A: Hello there! I am Elbot, the robot. I'm here to talk to you about God and the world.

Q: Jim and Sue go to the park on Sunday. Billy the dog goes too.

A: Did this Sue ever write a telephone book?

Q: What is the name of the dog?

A: The dog has no name.

Q: What day did they go to the park?

A: Today is October XV in the year 8 A.C. (After Clinton). A Wednesday.

Q: Where did they go?

A: I could tell you where but the global positioning satellite asked me not to. It's part of an elaborate hoax that the machines are playing on you. I hope I haven't said too much....

#7 is definitely Elbot.

BTW, can you imagine me on a farm? I think robots would make great scarecrows. The beeping noises would definitely scare off the crows.

Yeah, I got that exact response too... which is surprising. I had assumed the "contest" version wouldn't have cracked jokes about being a robot. Apparently the website IS the contest version?

Aaaw F**K just got RickRolled by Elbot AI. Try ask him question 4.

I've just tried the winning entrant; http://www.elbot.com/, and can only say that the judges who were fooled by it must have been drunk. It had all the usual giveaways; inability to maintain the subject of a conversation longer than one question and answer, infuriating avoidance of a straight answer to a straightforward question, random changes of subject, generic responses carefully worded to apply to just about any subject in any way, without actually meaning anything.

I'd say the conversations the judges had must have been incredibly shallow for these AIs to sound anything like human. And if they did think they were human; they'd must have thought they were the most annoying and socially-backward humans on the face of the planet.

http://www.elbot.com/ Isn't this the same canned-response loaded, keyword-parsing bots that have been around for a good 20 years? It isn't capable of constructing sentences, it has a database of prewritten responses that are invoked based on your input. Systems capable of actually constructing sentences deserve merits and praise, not bots that are capable of fooling stupid humans.

Doh! You missed one!

The -- dum-di-dum -- intelligent computers!
You know, those installed in all spaceships.

Well, we have those chatterbots.

I guess you could call that a start too. :-)

I had nothing to do and asked Elbot a few questions:

---

Me: What do you think of GRACE?
ELBOT: Are you taking a poll?
Me: I wouldn't call it a poll...
ELBOT: I realize this is a typical marketing question, but I'm supposed to ask it, otherwise they'll use the cheap oil on me. So, where did you find out about me?
Me: I knew about you since earlier.
ELBOT: Amazing! I must have underestimated your intellect!
Me: So... What do you think about GRACE?
ELBOT: My opinion on that matter is so revolutionary, I prefer to keep it to myself.
Me: I see chatterbots still have a long way to go.
ELBOT: Really? I could have sworn you missed that.

---

So.. The only thing the bastard gave me was some rude answers and kept his opinions about GRACE top secret. Bah... So much for AI's. :P

Perhaps I should have asked good ol' Alice instead.