Chatterbox Challenge Contest Underway

Chris Cowart writes "Chatbots from around the world are taking part in the fourth annual Chatterbox Challenge. Chatbots are computer programs designed to imitate human conversation, with the eventual aim of creating true virtual personalities and artificial intelligences. The Chatterbox Challenge runs from April 1 to April 30 and Internet users can talk to the competing chatbots through the competition web site." According to the organizer: "Chatbot names range from Aida to Zoe, and personalities vary from a fortune teller and a serial killer to a dragon and a horse!"

Comments

This all seems a bit pointless

[zyridium]

To me the idea of chatting is to talk about things that are happening...

For this to work it needs to happen within the context of some event or thing or understanding from outside the confines of a chatroom (eg talking about some football match, etc)...

Who cares if a bot can a/s/l it up and come on to you...

I fail to see

[plnrtrvlr]

I fail to see how fooling humans into thinking that they are having a conversation with another human, when it is really a chatbot, will do anything to produce artificial intelligence. It's an illusion, using technology, nothing more. Truly, our illusions are becoming more and more sophisticated as our technology grows, but artificial intelligence will require a deeper understanding than simple information processing and deduction from that information. Human intelligence, and the advancements that we have made with that intelligence, has been largely dependent on intuitive leaps: people who processed the information at hand (and quite often available to everyone) in a new and unique way. Learning to emulate the more standard thought processes of a day so that a conversation can be emulated is merely an exercise in sharpre usage of processing power and data storage, not a method of understanding the uniqueness of human thought.

Re:I fail to see

[MsGeek]

While I was studying natural language processing I read an interesting book in which Horst Hendriks-Jansen describes how, during a child's development, intelligent behaviour is built on a "scaffolding" of instinctive behaviour. For example, adults treat babies as intelligent, purposeful beings who are aware of their surroundings - we've all seen new parents interpreting baby's every burp and grimace as an attempt at conversation. In reality, most of a baby's actions are instinctive, and often unrelated to the people it's "interacting" with, but adults nevertheless feel a strong urge to respond and comment, keeping the false interaction going.

Hendriks-Jansen argues that this misunderstanding allows the child to "bootstrap" itself into genuine interactions, by learning from the intelligent responses to its semi-random behaviour.

Actually, the person who came up with this theory was actually Lev Vygotsky, an educator in 1930s Soviet Russia. (No "In Soviet Russia..." jokes, please.) Vygotsky was building on the research of Swiss educator Jean Piaget.

I have seen bots "evolve" in very interesting ways when resident on IRC channels. Of course, inevitably someone with an ecchi sense of humor comes along and gives the bot a filthy new vocabulary. ^_^

Will a carefully tended bot become sentient or even sapient? Doubtful. But they're fun to play with nonetheless.

Re:Nice

[JoshWurzel]

Consulting isn't enough. What really seems to be the problem is that the resource pages keep changing the way they format their data, so it becomes impossible for a chatbot to parse without monthly updates. This week I can ask my chatbot for the score in Celebrity Jeapordy (Sean Connery wins with a wager of SUCK IT TREBEK!) and it'll return "Sean Connery won with $uckittrebek".

Next week, when I ask the same question, it'll return "href a=blahblahblah won with a score of $%d3b" because the site it references has changed its format. I seem to notice this problem with weather programs too.

Rod Speed, the ultimate Usenet chatbot

[oingoboingo]

Does anyone here remember from the early days of Fidonet on dial-up BBSs, and more recently Usenet, a particularly offensive person named Rod Speed? This guy used to (and still does) post at an incredibly prolific rate, with some of the most anti-social, deliberately offensive tripe I've ever read. The posts were always so similar that it was suggested for a long time that Rod Speed was actually a bot. In fact, some people created a Rod Speed chatbot, and I swear you can't tell the difference between its responses and those of the 'real' Rod Speed.

This guy even has his own FAQ..just go to Deja and search for "Rod Speed". He really blurs the line between chatbot and human. Rod....Rod...are you on Slashdot?!?!?