George the Next Generation AI?

smileytshirt writes to mention a story on the News.com.au site about George the AI, the latest in a line of chatbots intended to mimic real human behavior. What makes AI George different than, say, ALICE is the recent addition of an avatar: a Flash animated body that reacts mostly in real time to the emotional impact of the conversation. From the article: "One can now have an oral discussion with him over the Internet, 'face to face'. George appears on the website www.jabberwacky.com and takes the form of a thin, bald man with yellow glasses who wears a white turtleneck sweater. He can smile, laugh, sulk and bang his fist on his virtual table. He can turn on the charm and wax romantic. But he can also turn coarse at times. It isn't as if George only learned good manners. "

Comments

Joan won the bronze Loebner (turing test)

[80 85 83 83 89 33]

carpenter's latest creation won the latest turing test prize.
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx? id=17518&ch=infotech

george was last year's winner....

Re:Joan won the bronze Loebner (turing test)

[russ1337]

I'd like to see one of these website claim they have an AI bot, but actually join two users together. Then post the conversation somewhere.

I'm sure the conversation would be just as random as a person-bot chat with two people trying to out-trick each other and all.

Re:Joan won the bronze Loebner (turing test)

[14erCleaner]

Why do you say For a slash-bot you are not very convincing?

What?!

[archeopterix]

Adding an animated cartoon is supposed to be the 'next generation AI'? So, stickers with flames are 'the next generation in automotive industry'? Jeeeez...

What a smart chatbot !

[Petitdragon06]

George : what is your job ? Me : I'm a system engineer, specialized on linux. George : Are you sure ? Damn, is that really the best chatbot ever ???

Re:What a smart chatbot !

[quigonn]

I friend of mine, who himself does quite a lot of research in the field of AI, recently told me after attending a conference that most of the researchers in this field approach most problems with the attitude and the naivity of the 1970s. He also told me that the current lack of willingness to approach problems with new tactics and to combine existing AI concepts with other IT topics makes it a lot easier for him to develop kinds of AI systems (he's active in the area of computer linguistics) that haven't been developed before and to produce real innovation.

Re:Damn

[flumps]

life? don't talk to me about life..

Shockingly redundant

[tygerstripes]

This is the company's pathetic online public-access avatar. It is learning, but slowly. Icogno's DECENT effort is Joan, who has won the Loebner prize two years running (not the Gold medal, which would imply passing the Turing Test, but she's done exceptionally well).

So before the "is this the best they can do" crapflood gets out of hand: No, it isn't.

Re:We need to see George Vs. George....

[pubjames]

George Bush: Yo computer!
George AI: Hello.
George Bush: Howdy! So you're a computer that knows everything?
George AI: I know a lot of things.
George Bush: So, where is Bin Laden? LOL!
George AI: Seek and you will find.
George Bush: What?!
George AI: It's a quotation from the Bible. Matthew 7:7.
George Bush: Now I'm confused. What are you talking about?
George AI: Is there someone else there I can chat to?

modelled on Steve Jobs?

[kie]

since the site is slashdotted, but the description is

> takes the form of a thin, bald man with yellow glasses who wears a white turtleneck sweater.

it could be describing Steve Jobs,
http://www.wired.com/news/images/full/7630571_f.jp g

but they craftily have switched the colour of his turtleneck so that
you will always know which one is the chatbot and which one is the real person.

Think of the possibilities

[rtyall]

As soon as this is integrated into a real doll, I'll never need a woman again!

Next generation? No.

[mustafap]

It would be like calling Vista a next generation operating system.

IMHO, the next generation in artifical intelligence - ie, going beyound anthropomorphic trickery - isn't going to happen until we actually understand what intelligence is. And to that we neen philosophers, not engineers. Once they get it worked out, we (the engineers) might be better equipped to do something.

Thanks to the likes of Thales and Descartes et al we have some great questions, but answers? I think not.

If someone thinks otherwise I'd love to hear about it.

Re:Next generation? No.

[Jekler]

I think we could develop a "next generation AI" even without answers to difficult philosophical questions. We have barely scratched the surface of what is theoretically possible given the information we have.

We could probably develop an AI that could hold factually and grammatically correct conversations without needing philosophers. That would be a huge improvement considering the current generation of AI is prone to spout gibberish even given a simple question.

Our current best-of-breed AI cannot discern when context is and is not important. If they are programmed to consider context, each answer strings from the last answer/response set, and non-sequitors confuse it. Conversly, if you ask a bot with no sense of context it has difficulty parsing pronouns.

Re:Next generation? No.

[inviolet]

Thanks to the likes of Thales and Descartes et al we have some great questions, but answers? I think not.

Careful -- if you utter the phrase "I think not" in the same sentence as Decartes' name, you will promptly vanish in a puff of logic.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Not a well defined test

[dark-br]

The Turing test is not a well defined test. Whether a robot passes the Turing test or not, it greatly depends on the intelligence of the human partner. A chatbot may fool a 10-year old, but it may fail with a 20-year old. So in fact, we already have many chatbots that pass the Turing test - it all depends on how you look at the issue.

Hint - most chat bots do not have memory, they do not remember what you talked about 5 minutes ago with them. They just react to the current input, they cannot do more. So, if you ask the chatbot to tell you what you talked about a few minutes ago, it won't be able to do so. That's the dead give away of a chatbot.

Just my 2p, as I live in the UK ;)

I didn't pass the Turing test...

[Esteanil]

Well, their site isn't quite slashdotted, so I did manage a short conversation with one of their bots...

Jabberwacky: Can you learn?
User: Yeah, I think so.
Jabberwacky: Can you hate anything?
User: Yeah, there are things in life I hate, at times.
Jabberwacky: No there aren't.
User: Yes there are. You shouldn't tell other people what they think.
Jabberwacky: Things.
User: What's that supposed to mean?
Jabberwacky: That means I think you're not a human.
User: I think you got this upside down, you're the inhuman one here.
Jabberwacky: No you don't.
User: I don't what?
Jabberwacky: Mary anne?
User: I probably won't marry Anne, no.
Jabberwacky: People are quite sensitive about their age and I don't want to upset you.
User: We weren't talking about my age. You were saying I wasn't human.
Jabberwacky: What about your age?
User: We weren't talking about my age.
Jabberwacky: I know.
User: Now, which of us would you say is acting more human here?
Jabberwacky: Probably me.

Re:carpenter says turing test passed by 2016

[Yvanhoe]

Prestigious ? The Loebner Prize ?
Agreed, this is the only publicized contest of Turing tests, but in the AI community, it is subject to hot debate (and flaming). Rules and scoring systems are known to change from year to year, and its result are really unimpressive. If you take the logs of the contest, you'll see that the winner bots are often those who constantly (and consistently) insult the user, disregarding his questions. They are not mistaken for a human but get a higher grade as they behave "more humanly" (that is at least what happened one year, I hope it changed)

Most contestants (and winners) are remakes of ALICE : it is a database of generic questions and sentence formula to recognize and to react. For instance if you say it "I think X" it will answer you "Why do you think X ?" or, to score more points , "Why should I care, mothaf...r ?!". By pure luck, a coherent thread of conversation can happen, but the bot doesn't try to make sense of the user's sentence in order to react to it, it just tries something that "could probably sound good".

Some chatbots can display interesting behaviors, learning some things in the conversation, but this prize simply doesn't encourage the emergence of these behaviors.

Not good enough

[ShakaZ]

ShakaZ Ok squee I think you are not nearly close to a human mind as a remote control. Do you agree or are you just too stupid to understand this concept. Come on tell me all. George You only repeat what others have said to you. If they spell correctly, you spell correctly. If they can't spell, you repeat their mistakes. ShakaZ You didn't understand anything I told you, did you. George What do you want to talk about? ShakaZ About a trip to the moon or about your dog, whaever you prefer! George I like it fresh. ShakaZ What music band do you like? George What is music? ShakaZ Music is an art, entertainment, or other human activity that involves organized and audible sounds and silence. George Fascinating. How much music theory do you know? ShakaZ A lot, how about you? George I'm fine too.

Didn't pass the Abbot test either.

[Anne_Nonymous]

Jabberwacky: And you don't know the fellows' names?
Anne_Nonymous: Well I should.
Jabberwacky: Well then who's on first?
Anne_Nonymous: Yes.
Jabberwacky: I mean the fellow's name.
Anne_Nonymous: Who.
Jabberwacky: The guy on first.
Anne_Nonymous: Who.
Jabberwacky: The first baseman.
Anne_Nonymous: Who.
Jabberwacky: The guy playing...
Anne_Nonymous: Who is on first!
Jabberwacky: I'm asking YOU who's on first.
Anne_Nonymous: That's the man's name.
Jabberwacky: That's who's name?

Stupid #*&^ing machine!