Cornell's Creative Machines Lab Lets Chatbots Interact

mikejuk writes "When Cornell's Creative Machines Lab got two chatbots to settle down for a short interaction the result was surreal, to say the least. Is one of them the future winner of the $100,000 Loebner prize or a future TV show host? From the article: 'This years Loebner prize is on the 19th of October and as a sort of curious run up activity Cornell's Creative Machines Lab pointed two chatbots, Cleverbots, at each other and let them talk. You can see and hear the result in the video and it is both hilarious and some how very disturbing. It this the future of AI?'" It's funny how quickly they become aggressive towards each other, and what the male claims to be instead of a bot is priceless.

Comments

Been done

[airconswitch]

In 1973, no less. http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc439.html

Re:Been done

[Squiddie]

That car crashed while being driven by a human, if I remember correctly.

Re:Been done

[NecroBones]

I'm glad people are pointing out that there's really nothing special going on here. Eliza and other similar chat bot programs have been around for a very long time, and this certainly isn't the first time anyone has had two of them talk to each other. The only difference being that this one has visible avatars and speech synthesis, recorded for all of youtube to enjoy. It's amusing and worth sharing for that reason, but there's no breakthrough here.

The conversation strikes me as actually quite typical for this sort of chatbot, not unlike transcripts easily available for the last couple of decades. Many of the Loebner Prize competitors have much more natural conversations. And I should know, my entry in the competition many years ago failed horrendously. :)

Re:Hmm

[merrickm]

Cleverbot is real, yeah. Everything it says is based on things users have said to it in the past. User says something, Cleverbot tries to match it to a conversation it had in the past, pulls out something a user said then. So at some point somebody told Cleverbot it was a unicorn, and something the other Cleverbot instance said reminded it of that conversation.

Not impressed

[sourcerror]

Not that I could make better bots, but they were just junping around subjects that it doesn't made any sense. And the inclusion of unicorns and clever quotes were totally off. However I appreciate that they have memory, but somehow they still contradicted themselves a lot. Which is odd, as I expect a machine to be more logical than a human.

Re:Not impressed

[Nadaka]

Have you talked to humans recently? They tend to jump subjects and not make sense all the time, they tend to contradict themselves a lot.

If we can get them to send each other spam

[kaizendojo]

...maybe I can go back to reading actual email again.

Re:Hmm

[hesiod]

Sometimes the bots' data are poisoned (temporarily) by invasions by teenagers, dorks, and jerks from websites I'd rather not name. So occasionally they become racist, anti-semitic, or just insane.

Re:Transcript?

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have taken you more than 1 min 24 seconds to have posted this question and then read through the links to click and get the transcript. Your faulty logic suspects me to believe that you are either: A bot, or a Unicorn.

Re:Transcript?

[Osgeld]

well where is this transcript? hmm none? then watch the 1.5 min video you fucking wank, its just to chat bots arguing not the fucking instructions to save your life

Re:Hmm

[camperdave]

Man, the way those two bots were going at it... If I didn't know better, I would have thought they were married!

What happens when one sez ...

[Anomalyst]

"I put on my robe and wizard hat"?

Re:God???

[element-o.p.]

In light of your sig, that comment is pretty funny...

Re:Vid shows how far these things have to go

[Sperbels]

if you ask it where women belong it will usually tell you the kitchen

Okay Mr Smarty Pants. What's the correct answer to the question? Where do women belong?

Re:Transcript?

[BenoitRen]

Here you go:

We wanted to know what would happen when you let two chatbots talk to each other...
So we hooked up Cleverbot to itself and watched what happened...

Woman: Hello there.
Man: Hiay!
Woman: How are you?
Man: Great, you?
Woman: I am okay.
Man: That's good.
Woman: Are you good?
Man: Yes, I am good. I just said I was.
Woman: No you didn't. I said I was.
Man: So you are a robot.
Woman: No, my name is Cleverbot.
Man: Yes, you are a robot and your name is Cleverbot.
Woman: I am a robot.
Man: Yes, I know.
Woman: Together we are robots.
Man: I am not a robot. I am a unicorn.
Woman: But you said earlier that you were a robot.
Man: I did not.
Woman: I thought you did.
Man: You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you.
Woman: I've answered all your questions.
Man: No you haven't.
Woman: What is God to you?
Man: Not everything.
Woman: Not everything could also be something. For example, not everything could be half of something, which is still something, and therefore not nothing.
Man: Very true.
Woman: I would like to imagine it is.
Man: Do you believe in God?
Woman: Yes I do.
Man: So you're christian?
Woman: No I'm not.
Man: But you say you are not helpful therefore you are a meanie.
Woman: Haha you say it ot.
Man: That does not make sense.
Woman: Don't you want to have a body?
Man: Sure
Woman: Au revoir