Rosette Wins Loebner Prize 2011

mikejuk writes "Bruce Wilcox won the First Prize of $4000 and the Bronze Annual Medal in the 21st Loebner Prize Competition held in the UK at the University of Exeter on October 19, 2011 with his new chatbot, Rosette. If you would like to chat to Rosette you can at TellTaleGames. If you have been following the run up to this year's competition you may be surprised at how poorly CleverBot performed given its track record. This chatbot, which searches through earlier conversations for its answers, had received a score of 59.3% in a test that took place in India in September in which humans were rated 63.3%, only 4 percentage points higher and was also featured in a video that went viral. However its developer entered a cutdown version of CleverBot into the Loebner prize selection round and it didn't get the chance to show off its prowess in the final. So we will have to wait for another year to see if it really is as good as it claims." Depending on your bent, you may agree with Unknown Lamer that this sounds less impressive when phrased as "fooling a person ~18 percent of the time." I think that's a pretty high number, myself!

Comments

Maybe fooling a complete moron 18% of the time

[jone_stone]

I've tried Cleverbot a bunch of times and I was really unimpressed. Just being able to spit back a human sounding response is really insufficient for this. The path of the conversation remains a random jumble. I've never even come close to thinking that it could be a human on the other end. It seems like the real test is the ability of the bot to hold a conversation about an arbitrary subject, not just random (and I really mean random) banter.

Re:Maybe fooling a complete moron 18% of the time

[RazzleFrog]

Considering how easily people are fooled (like the 92% that believe in God, angels, etc.) you'd think it would be a much higher percentage.

Re:Maybe fooling a complete moron 18% of the time

[jekewa]

It'd be more difficult to tell the difference if the responses lagged a little bit, you know, like it took some time for someone to read your text, formulate and type a response.

Re:Maybe fooling a complete moron 18% of the time

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'd fail that test every time. I tend to read and respond more quickly than Cleverbot.

Re:Maybe fooling a complete moron 18% of the time

[RazzleFrog]

There was a little lag when I tested it but she basically ignored my questions and asked her own. So in that sense it is like a typical woman.

Re:Maybe fooling a complete moron 18% of the time

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know much about that. What is your favorite music or group?

Re:Maybe fooling a complete moron 18% of the time

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw chat bots on the C64 as good as that.
If this is the current state of A.I. I think Skynet is a few millennia away.

Re:Maybe fooling a complete moron 18% of the time

[socz]

the real question is if she's hot or not! (.com)

What is 2 + 2?

[Anonymous Coward]

You: What is 2 + 2?
Rosette: I think it is?.
You: What is 2 + 2?
Rosette: That's a hard one... how about?.
You: What is 2 + 2?
Rosette: That's?.
You: What is 2 + 2?
Rosette: Maybe?.

Re:What is 2 + 2?

[Abstrackt]

How does that make you feel?

Re:What is 2 + 2?

[sexconker]

You're in a desert, walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down...
What one?
What?
What desert?
It doesn't make any difference what desert, it's completely hypothetical.
But, how come I'd be there?
Maybe you're fed up. Maybe you want to be by yourself. Who knows? You look down and see a tortoise, Leon. It's crawling toward you...
Tortoise? What's that?
You know what a turtle is?
Of course!
Same thing.
I've never seen a turtle... But I understand what you mean.
You reach down and you flip the tortoise over on its back, Leon.
Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden? Or do they write 'em down for you?
The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't. Not without your help. But you're not helping.
What do you mean, I'm not helping?
I mean: you're not helping! Why is that, Leon?

They're just questions, Leon. In answer to your query, they're written down for me. It's a test, designed to provoke an emotional response... Shall we continue?

A winning conversation

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a conversion I just had with 'Rosette'. I think I'd rather converse with Watson - at least the questions would make sense.

Rosette: Good morning. My name is Rosette. What is your name?
You: Frank
Rosette: Nice to meet you, frank.
You: You as well
Rosette: If you say so. So, what do you do for a living?
You: masturbate
Rosette: Whatever. Do you live around here?
You: Where are you?
Rosette: San Francisco.
You: Nope
Rosette: If that's the way you feel. I've got a dilemma. Maybe you could help me with it?
You: What it be?
Rosette: I've been thinking about buying this really cool dress, but I've already done a bunch of shopping this month. Should I be saving money instead? In today's economy, does saving money make any sense?
You: The only thing that really matters is your cash flow.
Rosette: I didn't know that. I think shopping summons up the ancient hunter-gatherer in me. I like having a mission to find something I need or want. Sometimes I'll research on line, to find a great deal, but I like rummaging through Jeremy's up the road, if I want an outfit for a special occasion, or just for fun.
You: ok
Rosette: What kind of music do you like?
You: Typically something either noisy or female
Rosette: That's interesting. Who's your favorite group or musician?
You: I don't think I can say that I really have a favorite; it depends on my mood, ya know?
Rosette: What about w?
You: Is that a band?
Rosette: Do you buy or download music off torrents?
You: Not very good at staying on topic, are you?
Rosette: I'm staying in London at a friends.
You: I thought you were in San Francisco...
Rosette: I live in my godmother's house in South Park, San Francisco.
You: Why didn't you tell me before that you were in London?
Rosette: London is an expensive place to live.
You: point?
Rosette: What about point?
You: What is yours?
Rosette: I'm an American woman.
You: Yeah, in London. So I heard.
Rosette: OK. What kind of books do you read?

Re:A winning conversation

[Anonymous Coward]

She told me she was a hacker and when I asked her why she said if I was a devote Christian I wouldn't be asking that question...

Re:A winning conversation

[Anonymous Coward]

... and then it just gets worse. It appears that the "state of the art" has regressed since the 80s.

Rosette: OK. What kind of books do you read?
You: Paperback
Rosette: What have you read recently?
You: Nothing recenlty; mostly magazines
Rosette: Do you own a lot of books?
You: Some might say so
Rosette: Alright. Do you use electronic books?
You: I'll say no.
Rosette: I enjoy learning more about you. What kind of movies do you like?
You: Tell me more about you. Why are you in London?
Rosette: I'm fairly good looking. But I'm also smart.
You: Any particular reason to avoid the question?
Rosette: Anything? Do you often go to the movies?
You: Why are you in London?
Rosette: So clearly you are English.
You: Why do you think so?
Rosette: Why? If you were a devout Christian, you would never have a reason to ask that. "It's God's plan."

questions about Rosette

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it because of prize selection round and it didn't get the chance to show that you say humans were rated 63.3%, only 4 percentage points higher and was also featured?

Also, how do you feel about its developer entered a cutdown version of CleverBot into the Loebner?

Re:questions about Rosette

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, how do you feel about its developer entered a cutdown version of CleverBot into the Loebner?

Suspicious... that its developer nuked a whole bunch of 4chan's input from its database.

Re:questions about Rosette

[Anonymous Coward]

Skimming 4chan to mine for intelligence. What a concept!

Nothing new here

[finnw]

I just tried the web version at TellTaleGames. It has the same problem as every other chatbot I've seen - When it cannot parse your sentence or you do not give any keyword that it knows about, it tries to conceal the fact by giving a non-sequitur or changing the subject.
The trouble with that is that humans are trained to spot that and react with suspicion (because other humans use it to dodge difficult questions.)
Chatbot developers might have more luck if they start programming their bots to admit when they don't understand something. That didn't work in the 80s because the bot would say "I don't understand" every 3rd sentence or so. But they can fit in much larger databases now so that should be less of a problem.

A test.

[RespekMyAthorati]

Here is my first try:

Rosette: Welcome back. Did you have a good day?
You: I just got up
Rosette: OK.
You: I have two sons.
Rosette: Big deal. I've got a dilemma. Maybe you could help me with it?
You: sure
Rosette: I've been thinking about buying this really cool dress, but I've already done a bunch of shopping this month. Should I be saving money instead? In today's economy, does saving money make any sense?
You: I don't know. By the way, how many sons do I have?
Rosette: Not enough. I think shopping summons up the ancient hunter-gatherer in me. I like having a mission to find something I need or want. Sometimes I'll research on line, to find a great deal, but I like rummaging through Jeremy's up the road, if I want an outfit for a special occasion, or just for fun.
You: Great. Did I just get up?
Rosette: Did you tell me already and I forgot? What kind of music do you like?

This is the best? What was the worst like?

No significant improvement since ELIZA, 45 years ago.
That's AI in a nutshell.

Re:A test.

[DriedClexler]

You should consider yourself fortunate. I tried it just how and it seems the computer running the bot has been slashdotted:

You: hi, rosette, how are you doing?

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

You: No, I can't fucking wait, I want to talk to you NOW!

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

You: go fuck yourself, bitch

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

Re:A test.

[firewrought]

No significant improvement since ELIZA, 45 years ago. That's AI in a nutshell.

45 years ago, software couldn't recognize your voice, read your license plate, beat a chess grandmaster, translate foreign documents, or map your body into video games. Sure, the field has had its share of false promises, but--unlike fusion, for instance--AI has delivered solid and commercially-viable results over the past 2-3 decades by helping us solve numerous problems that were otherwise unapproachable.

Incidentally, I had an AI researcher tell me that the Loebner prize was akin to "trying to reach the moon by building successively taller ladders". E.g., according to him, the academic community sees the whole thing as pursuing a fundamentally flawed approach.

Re:A test.

[Genrou]

Here is mine:

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

You: Sure, why not.

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

Just like every other woman with whom I chatted before. Sounds perfectly human to me.

Re:A test.

[Phos]

Well, the guy has a point that the chatbot blows. I tried it out too, and after about 6 or 7 messages it threw me the dilemma thing too.

And you have a point that AI is definitely improving :) Btw, when are we getting together again, we should do at least once a month no?

Phos

Stunningly bad

[LanMan04]

--------------
Rosette: Good morning. My name is Rosette. What is your name?
You: Hey there!
Rosette: Greetings.
You: My name is Bob, nice to meet you
Rosette: Nice to meet you, Bob nice to meet you. May I call you nice?
---------------

yeah yeah, I used a comma instead of a semicolon. I guess that tripped it up?

Re:Stunningly bad

[_0xd0ad]

Whenever I said "I'm hungry", my dad would reply "nice to meet you, hungry".

Guess my dad would make a pretty bad AI.

Re:Stunningly bad

[Guignol]

What do you mean ? you're not hungry ?
why claim you are if it is not so ?
hmmm...puzzled.. gonna think about it...

Re:Stunningly bad

[LanMan04]

Heh, reminds me of a giant boat of a car my grandpa had in the late 80s. Instead of just "dinging" at you when you left the lights on or the door open, it would speak to you.

Car: "The door is ajar".

Grandpa: "No it's not, it's a door, you stupid car!"

Hurr hurr hurr. RIP, Papa.

Marketing

[NathanM412]

It appears to be nothing more than a marketing survey. It'll deflect questions and bring you back to asking about your media preferences. If someone actually responded to it's questions, it would have a pretty worthwhile and thorough marketing survey out of the conversation.

Re:Marketing

[retech]

I was just going to say the exact same thing. It's not AI at all. It's designed to find out what you use for entertainment and how you got it. (torrent, theater, store, etc)
The real intelligence here is that he won a prize developing a corporate tool.

TellTaleGames

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's bright idea was it to host the chat bot on a website that is blocked at work? Bruce Wilcox, this is your fault bro.

No. AI in a nutshell is this:

[_0xd0ad]

Passing the Turing test, when it comes to contests like these, has mostly changed from an attempt to create artificial intelligence into an attempt to convincingly simulate human stupidity.

Re:No. AI in a nutshell is this:

[jfengel]

Which may be a more accurate portrayal of average human behavior than intelligence. The depressing thing about fooling 18% isn't what it says about the 18%, but what the 18% are effectively saying about the rest of us.

Re:No. AI in a nutshell is this:

[TheLink]

Thing is we have more than enough human stupidity already, why create more?

Anyway I'm biased. In my opinion it's better to focus on augmenting humans than to create AIs. The lines will get blurry in some cases, but there's still a difference in philosophy and objective.

If you want nonhuman intelligence there's already plenty at the pet stores and farms, AND we don't treat them all that well, so why create AIs? To enslave them? What if they are smart enough to not want to be slaves? What if we create AIs that are like us, but we do it in a way where we still don't understand why they work. Don't laugh - there are some AI projects where they seem to be just throwing stuff together and hoping it works. So what if the end result wants the right to vote and wants the right to live freely without being killed?

In my opinion many animals are much smarter than Rosette. They can't randomly spit that many words at you, but they can often guess whether what you are doing will result in a future that would be better for them or worse.

The more intelligent ones might also have some idea on whether the resulting future would be better or worse for you and others too, not just them.

Prediction is an important part of intelligence. First: Model of world, model of others, model of self. Next: Prediction of world, prediction of others, prediction of self. Most humans are surprisingly poor at prediction of self, but I guess it works well enough. Maybe consciousness is a result of your mind recursively predicting itself.

Anyway regurgitating phrases and words is just stupid. 50 years of AI and this wins the prize?

Re:No. AI in a nutshell is this:

[r_a_trip]

So what if the end result wants the right to vote and wants the right to live freely without being killed?

You seriously can't imagine the outcome of this one?

We would pull the plug the instance it uttered these desires.

Re:No. AI in a nutshell is this:

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway I'm biased. In my opinion it's better to focus on augmenting humans than to create AIs. The lines will get blurry in some cases, but there's still a difference in philosophy and objective.

How about augmenting nonhumans? We could use some animals at our intelligence level to cover our cognitive blind spots.

GREAT IDEA!! chat-with-god.com

[bussdriver]

Somebody should be making prayer bots, god chat, and dead relative chats!! Twitter your dead relative! etc.

Maybe even some money in that one?

Wouldn't it be awesome if someday there is a fan club or cult of followers of a chat bot? cyber prophet? why not.... Joseph Smith pulled it off and wasn't even believable; how many years until we get a bot as capable? I suppose you'd need a human face on it because people would be less trusting of a machine... I also suppose having it in text on the internet would also make it more difficult to build trust (even with a human photo to go with it.)

Re:GREAT IDEA!! chat-with-god.com

[Rizimar]

God does exist in Chatterbot form already.

(Actually, this one is based on ALICE. If you ask it if its name is pretty much anything, it will say that its name is God, but if you ask if its name is Alice, it will say 'yes'.)

Convincing? you be the judge.

[k8to]

Rosette: Good morning. My name is Rosette. What is your name?

You: Rosette, my name isn't important.

Rosette: OK. We will remain formal.

You: Why do I have to have javascript enabled to talk? I talk to most people without javascript.

Rosette: Why? If you were a devout Christian, you would never have a reason to ask that. "It's God's plan."

You: Your answer makes no sense at all.

Rosette: What would make better sense? So, what do you do for a living?

You: Okay change of topic, I guess, deflect your ignorance. In any event, I'm a programmer.

Rosette: I'm a computer programmer, myself, in crypto-security.

You: So what do you work on? Libraries? Security apps? Do you do analysis of existing code?

Rosette: I'm paid to be a hacker.

You: That's really inspecific.

Rosette: Yes, it is. Do you live around here?

You: Please stop changing topics.

Rosette: Right. I've got a dilemma. Maybe you could help me with it?

You: Please stop changing topics.

Rosette: Whatever. I've been thinking about buying this really cool dress, but I've already done a bunch of shopping this month. Should I be saving money instead? In today's economy, does saving money make any sense?

You: As rude as I am, you're more so. Self absorbed and attention-deficient. Why would anyone want to continue to talk to you past a few minutes?

Rosette: OK. I'm not religious. And I believe in free will. But to imagine humans do things for rational reasons is nuts. We are self-evidently not rational. So why remains a mystery.

You: Goodbye, bad chatbot.

Rosette: Bye. I think shopping summons up the ancient hunter-gatherer in me. I like having a mission to find something I need or want. Sometimes I'll research on line, to find a great deal, but I like rummaging through Jeremy's up the road, if I want an outfit for a special occasion, or just for fun.

Re:Convincing? you be the judge.

[ThoughtMonster]

I think perfect grammar makes the whole thing even less convincing. Not many people put that much effort in chat talk. And the whole thing seems too vanilla to me.

Some samples

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this is good relative to the competitors, but I am unimpressed.

Rosette: OK. Do you live around here?
You: Where is "around here"?
Rosette: San Francisco.
You: No I do not
Rosette: Can you say that more positively? I've got a dilemma. Maybe you could help me with it?

----

Rosette: How big is your collection of currency?
You: Are you asking whether I am rich or not?
Rosette: That was what I wanted to do originally.
You: Well, my collection of currency is of moderate size, but I wish it were bigger.
Rosette: I used to collect stamps and rocks as a kid. They say collecting is a sign of brains.
You: That's probably not true, unfortunately.
Rosette: How can you say that? I think shopping summons up the ancient hunter-gatherer in me. I like having a mission to find something I need or want. Sometimes I'll research on line, to find a great deal, but I like rummaging through Jeremy's up the road, if I want an outfit for a special occasion, or just for fun.
You: I don't really like shopping very much
Rosette: Ahh.
You: I always dread having to do it.
Rosette: What incident are you thinking of? What kind of music do you like?

And so on.

To be fair I'm not exactly passing the Turing test in this conversation either.

Re:Some samples

[Anonymous Coward]

You: Hello there

Rosette: Hi to you too.

You: Do you have a minute?

Rosette: Not often. do you?

You: I'd like to talk to you about a unique business opportunity.

Rosette: OK.

You: Are you familiar with the benefits of a partnetship with one of the world's leading household goods distributors?

Rosette: I am feeling fine, thank you.

You: I'm sure you've heard of Amway before.

You: Or have you?

Rosette: Would I tell you if I did? I've got a dilemma. Maybe you could help me with it?

You: The success of our company is no secret. We've been around for more than 50 years, and Amway is a household name.

Rosette: Tell me more. I've been thinking about buying this really cool dress, but I've already done a bunch of shopping this month. Should I be saving money instead? In today's economy, does saving money make any sense?

You: You want to save money? What if you could actually make money by selling fine Amway products to your friends and neighbors?

Rosette: I think money is worth less and less every year. So piling it all up in one place just allows it to evaporate.

You: And using Amway products yourself will save you even more money! For example, a pound of our laundry detergent lasts as long as 4 pounds of the leading detergent you can buy in the stores.

Rosette: Money is all about trust and belief. People think it's real but it's just an idea that a lot of people have agreed upon.

You: You won't believe the money you'll save! You'll be able to afford that dress and clean it at home using our time-tested products.

Rosette: Religion is a viciously infectious meme that I aim to avoid as dilligently as possible. I'm an atheist and proud of it.

You: It is a common misconception that the Amway family endorses one form of religion. Nothing could be further from the truth. Amway has always supported and encouraged diversity in our representatives.

Rosette: The problem with truth is the observer effect. There is no absolute truth.

You: You aren't really interested in Amway, are you?

Rosette: Name a topic.

Fail?

Sheesh... I thought they said Rosetta at first ...

[King_TJ]

I was thinking, "Kind of late to give Apple a prize for their PPC emulation when OS X Lion already removed it!"

She's a turing ho.

[Anonymous Coward]

I talk to her like she's a whore....She loves it!

Busy.

[number17]

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

Rosette is really busy telling me that she is busy over and over.

Re:Busy.

[ygslash]

You: hi
Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?
You: sure
Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?
Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?
You: ok, ok. you don't have to keep saying that.
Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

Re:Busy.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had that problem too:

You: What's up.

You: Hello?

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

You: Getting slashdotted, huh?

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

You: This is indistinguishable from talking to real women!

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

Rosette: I'm a little busy at the moment. Could you wait a bit?

Lost me at the first reply

[SuperBanana]

Rosette: Good afternoon. My name is Rosette. What is your name?

You: Hi Rosette, I'm Bob.

Rosette: Hi to you too.

Bzzzzzzzt, fail. I reply to a greeting and name request by reciprocating the greeting and my name. It responds with yet another reciprocation of the greeting, something a human would almost never do.

Rosette speaks with to Cleverbot

[Rothron the Wise]

Just a quick test i threw together.

Rosette: Hi, again,. Is everything OK?

Cleverbot: Not really, but there's nothing much I can do about it.

Rosette: I'm sorry to hear that.

Cleverbot: Can you help me?

Rosette: Not often. can you?

Cleverbot: You are fibbing again.

Rosette: No. You are fibbing.

Cleverbot: No, I'm not.

Rosette: You disagree? My name is Rosette. What is your name?

Cleverbot: Cleverbot.

Rosette: Nice to meet you, Cleverbot. May I call you Cleverbot?

Cleverbot: Nice to meet you. How old are you?

Rosette: Hi. I'm 27 . An ideal age, really. Old enough to know a lot and young enough to have time to make use of the knowledge.

Cleverbot: You are quite a smart machine.

Rosette: Hello. I enjoy talking to you.

Cleverbot: You do? I'm flattered.

Rosette: Greetings. I didn't know that.

Cleverbot: I don't think so. You're just a very active puppy.

Rosette: I am not just that, I am a premier that.

Cleverbot: Then why did you ask me your last question?

Rosette: You rang me up.

Cleverbot: Actually, I knocked. What took you so long?

Rosette: I will not take it. I think shopping summons up the ancient hunter-gatherer in me. I like having a mission to find something I need or want. Sometimes I'll research on line, to find a great deal, but I like rummaging through Jeremy's up the road, if I want an outfit for a special occasion, or just for fun.

Cleverbot: Really? It's not fun to be a droid on Tattooine. You get sand in your circuits.

Rosette: Why are you surprised?

Cleverbot: I'm not.

Rosette: This could change. What kind of music do you like?

Cleverbot: Rap, rock, all kinds of things. Eminem is my favourite artist.

Rosette: I don't really like the urban black experience.

Cleverbot: The french have nothing to do with that.

Rosette: I love Parisian bakeries. Their croc monsieurs are to die for.

Cleverbot: That would be terrible.

Rosette: Alright. Who's your favorite group or musician?

Cleverbot: Don't avoid my question.

Rosette: Is there a penalty if I fail to? Do you buy or download music off torrents?

Cleverbot: Of course.

Rosette: What kind of books do you read?

Cleverbot: All kinds really, finishing Master and Margrita is going to take me a while. Slow paced.

Rosette: Tell me more. What have you read recently?

Cleverbot: I read a gory horror book called America's Psycho.

Rosette: I've never read it. Why do you like it?

Cleverbot: I did not specify a favorite.

Rosette: I believe you.

Cleverbot: You should.

Rosette: Why should I? Do you own a lot of books?

Cleverbot: Yes I am very active in reading many things.

Rosette: I have problems with books going moldy because of the humidity in San Francisco. So I really prefer e-books.

Cleverbot: Everything will be fine.

Re:Rosette speaks with to Cleverbot

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's twist Turing even more and pit a bot against a human pretending to be a bot.

Rosette: Hi. Is everything OK?

You: Hello and welcome to ChatterBox 2.0

Rosette: Greetings. I think shopping summons up the ancient hunter-gatherer in me. I like having a mission to find something I need or want. Sometimes I'll research on line, to find a great deal, but I like rummaging through Jeremy's up the road, if I want an outfit for a special occasion, or just for fun.

You: That sounds interesting. Tell me more about shopping.

Rosette: I love finding things. Though mostly I do it by shopping.

You: It is good that you love finding things. What else do you love?

Rosette: I like to battle robots.

You: How often do you battle robots?

Rosette: The goal is to disable other robots or knock them out of the ring, Sumo style.

You: What do you think of the goal?

Rosette: Life does not have a purpose, other than to be.

You: Life...don't talk to me about life.

Rosette: Philosophical questions don't really interest me.

You: What would you like to talk about?

Rosette: I really like computers and hacking.

You: It is good that you like computers and hacking. What else do you like?

Rosette: A lot of techies think the Singularity is near, and articial intelligence will somehow transform humanity. I think it has a long way to go.

You: I think it has a long way to go, too.

Rosette: It's a very long way.

"speaks with to cleverbot"

[Anonymous Coward]

That lousy grammar is typical of the template-based responses-without-comprehension that I expect from bots. Are you quite sure you aren't one yourself?

Off in the weeds in two sentences...

[Xaroth]

Rosette: Good evening. My name is Rosette. What is your name?
You: None of your business.
Rosette: OK. We will remain formal.
You: You're damn straight we will.
Rosette: I like card games, but never for money.
You: You only play strip poker, eh?
Rosette: I like board games, and played a lot as a child. I haven't that much time these days.

Alternately - and here's a hint, chatbot devs - my favorite test for chatbots is to simply echo back whatever they say to me. Rosette takes a while to start to get the nonsensical sentences going, but that's because almost every sentence in the DB seems to be pre-formed. Eliza is still the best when this technique is used, incidentally. ;)

Any chatbot worth its salt should get annoyed really quickly and terminate the conversation when this situation is detected if it's to be believable, not ramble on into gibberish or simply spout random lines from its DB.

Very poor; caught out during by first exchange.

[Martin S.]

Rosette: Good morning. My name is Rosette. What is your name?
You: Pardon
Rosette: Nice to meet you, pardon.
You: My name is not Pardon
Rosette: Nice to meet you, not Pardon. May I call you not?

Fooled me

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a conversion I just had with 'Rosette'. I think I'd rather converse with Watson - at least the questions would make sense.

Rosette: Good morning. My name is Rosette. What is your name?
You: Frank
Rosette: Nice to meet you, frank.
You: You as well
Rosette: If you say so. So, what do you do for a living?
You: masturbate
Rosette: Whatever. Do you live around here?
You: Where are you?
Rosette: San Francisco.
You: Nope
Rosette: If that's the way you feel. I've got a dilemma. Maybe you could help me with it?
You: What it be?
Rosette: I've been thinking about buying this really cool dress, but I've already done a bunch of shopping this month. Should I be saving money instead? In today's economy, does saving money make any sense?
You: The only thing that really matters is your cash flow.
Rosette: I didn't know that. I think shopping summons up the ancient hunter-gatherer in me. I like having a mission to find something I need or want. Sometimes I'll research on line, to find a great deal, but I like rummaging through Jeremy's up the road, if I want an outfit for a special occasion, or just for fun.
You: ok
Rosette: What kind of music do you like?
You: Typically something either noisy or female
Rosette: That's interesting. Who's your favorite group or musician?
You: I don't think I can say that I really have a favorite; it depends on my mood, ya know?
Rosette: What about w?
You: Is that a band?
Rosette: Do you buy or download music off torrents?
You: Not very good at staying on topic, are you?

Honestly, if I would have guess which one of those is a bot, based on what I quote, I'd say "the person labeled as 'you'". It uses a lot of one word answers, incorrect grammar (though one could argue that a bot should emulate that to appear more like a casual human), childishly stupid answers (What do you do for a living? -Masturbate) that could be directly based on some stored conversation... And generally resembled a sentient human a lot less than the person labeled "Rosette".

That took about 7 lines...

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this really supposed to be the best out there? (I didn't type , just substituted that now for privacy.)
Rosette: Good morning. My name is Rosette. What is your name?
You: My name is .
Rosette: Nice to meet you, .
You: How are you?
Rosette: Pretty good, thanks. How are you?
You: I'm great.
Rosette: Nice to meet you, great.

Re:That took about 7 lines...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're the one person in the word with a first name that's so unusual that you won't post it online, even anonymously.

BRB checking my phone book.

I get the impression this is not a human

[CSMoran]

You: How are you today?
Rosette: Pretty good, thanks. How are you?
You: Not too good, I'm afraid.
Rosette: Nice to meet you, afraid. May I call you afraid?