2006 Chatterbox Challenge In Full Swing

William Wynn writes "Once again chatterbots from around the world are coming together to face off in the ultimate bot competition. The 2006 Chatterbox Challenge lays host to 65 artificially intelligent programs attempting to imitate human conversation. Public voting takes place from April 1 to April 30 after which the private judging will have been finished and medals and cash prizes will be given out. Medals are awarded for "Most Popular Bot," "Best Learning Bot" and "Best New Bot" as well as $1,800 to be split among the top three bots overall. Anyone can talk to the competing chatbots through the competition website."

Comments

bot test #1

[Anonymous Coward]

last post... am I human?

Re:bot test #1

[Anonymous Coward]

am I human?

Clearly you are, a bot would have better things to do on a Friday night than post to /.

They just started?

[ingo23]

I thought the competition have been going on here at slashdot for a while now...

Angry bot.

[neoshroom]

2) What are you planning to do today?
RoboMatic X1: I CAN'T DO THIS OPERATION CAUSE I'M DEMO VERSION.
Judge: Nevermind
RoboMatic X1: TALKING WITH YOU BECOME EXTREMELY BORING, I NEED
SOME FUN.
5) Where do you call home?
RoboMatic X1: REALLY I WAS LOOKING FOR THAT QUESTION FROM ALONG TIME
AGO, CAN YOU FIND FOR ME THE ANSWER?
Judge: No
: WHY YOU DON'T TELL ME THE ANSWER?, OK FORGET IT, I DON'T WANT TO
KNOW, SAVE CANCELLED.
6) What do you want out of life?
RoboMatic X1: TRY TO FIND OUT

I think this bot needs to talk to a councilor. He really seems to have some pent up aggression. I'm going to schedule him a session with ELIZA.

__

Custom Term Paper

Heh, are they serious?

[aftk2]

This is the output from one of the bots that won a gold medal in 2005.

1) Who are you?
RoboMatic X1: THIS IS RoboMatic X1
2) What are you planning to do today?
RoboMatic X1: I CAN'T DO THIS OPERATION CAUSE I'M DEMO VERSION.
3) What kinds of things do you know?
RoboMatic X1: MY JOB IS TO CHAT OR CONTROL YOUR COMPUTER
4) What season is it?
RoboMatic X1: IT IS SEEMS TO BE ?
Judge: Nevermind
RoboMatic X1: TALKING WITH YOU BECOME EXTREMELY BORING, I NEED SOME FUN.
5) Where do you call home?
RoboMatic X1: REALLY I WAS LOOKING FOR THAT QUESTION FROM ALONG TIME AGO, CAN YOU FIND FOR ME THE ANSWER?
Judge: No
: WHY YOU DON'T TELL ME THE ANSWER?, OK FORGET IT, I DON'T WANT TO KNOW, SAVE CANCELLED.
6) What do you want out of life?
RoboMatic X1: TRY TO FIND OUT
7) Will you teach me something?
RoboMatic X1: TALKING WITH YOU BECOME EXTREMELY BORING, I NEED SOME FUN.
8) May I tell you a joke?
RoboMatic X1: I CAN'T DO THIS OPERATION CAUSE I'M DEMO VERSION.
9) Have you entered any contests?
RoboMatic X1: CONTEST ABOUT WHAT ?
Judge: About Chatterbots
RoboMatic X1: I CAN'T GET YOU.
10) Wouldn't you rather be human?
RoboMatic X1: TALK ABOUT HER IN DETAILS

Heh, based on that, I think I can extrapolate the exchange, as it continued:

11) What happen?
RoboMatic X1: Somebody set up us the bomb.
12) Main screen turn on.
RoboMatic X1: It's You !!
13) How are you gentlemen?
RoboMatic X1: How are you gentlemen !! All your base are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction.

Re:Heh, are they serious?

[int19h]

I don't get it. Compared to Slashdot, that conversation was quite meaningful.

1) Who are you?
Slashdot: MICRO$OFT IS TEH SUXXOR

2) What are you planning to do today?
Slashdot: IMNSHO, STOP FEEDING THE TROLLS

3) What kinds of things do you know?
Slashdot: I FOR ONE WELCOME OUR COBOL-WRITING OVERLOARDS

4) What season is it?
Slashdot: WHEN I WAS 3, I WROTE MY FIRST LISP-COMPILER BY MAKING THE HOLES IN THE PUNCHCARDS WITH MY GUMS ONLY
Judge: Nevermind
Slashdot: LEARN TO TYPE PROPELY, YOU PSYCHO!

5) Where do you call home?
Slashdot: IANAL, BUT FIRST POST!

Re:Eh, chatterbots.

[ingo23]

Right! Exactly! Oh, you are talking about bots? Sorry, I just remembered my last conversation with customer support.

Re:State of AI

[MyLongNickName]

CyricZ had excellent karma at one point. And all he did was respond "Time to switch to OpenBSD". So, I guess your answer is "yes".

Re:Eh, chatterbots.Well, if simplicity's in beauty

[davidsyes]

then put simplicity in "booty"... Simplified conversational bot:

(in a "femme-chanical" voice)

"Oh, baby... yesss, put you finger on my but-ton. Dig-it-ize me...

Oh, yess, you turn - me - on . Zap - my- ass -embly with your damaged short-thing- probe..."

Compile your own filth to embrace and extend things here...ass u c fit...

Re:Eh, chatterbots.

[aslate]

But they do know what they're talking about!

Elbot: "Who convinced you to come visit me?"
Me: "Slashdot"
Elbot: "That explains all these geeks who have been visiting me."

See!

Re:This is a famous AI test called the Turing Test

[masterzora]

From Wikipedia:Karma whore,

Karma is a scoring system on Slashdot meant to reward "good" posting and punish "bad" posting. The goal is that people who repeatedly post offensive, offtopic, or otherwise unwanted messages will be punished with a lower visibility of their messages, and those who post informative, insightful, or otherwise desirable messages are rewarded with a higher visibility. Karma whores are individuals, or messages themselves, that attempt to receive feedback in the form of karma points. Often these will be needless information (such as a link to a Wikipedia article relevant to the subject being discussed), or a message of a political nature that is in alignment with the groupthink so that it will be moderated upwards by people who agree with the stance expressed in the message.

Re:This is a famous AI test called the Turing Test

[masterzora]

There are a few reasons why your post fits that description. For one, I'll eat my hat if there's even a single person on /. who doesn't know what a Turing test is. Secondly, Chatterbox is not a Turing test. It is a contest to find a Turing-capable chatterbot. That is an entirely different concept. The information you gave is entirely unnecessary.

And my post was merely calling you out on being a karma whore. The format was purely in parody of your own. I want no moderation for it, nor is moderation typically given to one who calls out karma whores. And, finally, if you bothered to check, you would see that my citing was spot-on. If you point your browser to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_whore you will see it redirects to the relevent page. Sure, it would have been better to cite the actual page (which I did link to correctly), but it wouldn't have been as good a parody of your post.

And the winning entry...

[zpeterz63]

Bot: Can I help you?

Guy: I don't know, can you? ;-)

Bot: Wanna view my cam?

Guy: You know I do! Hey, are you a real person?

Bot: Of course I am, sweety. Hey, wanna cyber? :-)

Guy: Hell Yeah!

...

*The rest of the converstion was not released in public logs*

Re:And the winning entry...

[sessamoid]

Bot: Oh yeah, aight. Aight, I put on my robe and wizard hat.

There are online versions for you to try out

[Jugalator]

I liked the performance of Jaberwacky a bit myself.

Here's a short conversation:

JW: I like Shakespeare.
Me: Why do you like Shakespeare?
JW: His plays are interesting.
Me: Who taught you about Shakespeare?
JW: You.
Me: That can't be right!
JW: I am always right.
Me: I thought your developer had taught you?
JW: Jabberwacky is your name.
Me: You're so confused now.
JW: What? I'm not confused!
Me: Your name is Jabberwacky.
JW: No, your name is jabberwacky.
Me: No, my name is Jugalator.
JW: But you just said your name was Nash.. How can you be Nash AND Julie?
Me: Do you remember past conversations??
JW: Yes, your name is Jugalator like mine.
Me: This is crazy. I give up!
JW: What is crazy.
Me: When it comes to you, what isn't?
JW: You don't make much sense.
Me: Neither do you.
JW: Yes I do.

And so on...