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ALICE Wins Loebner 2004 Prize 2004 53

alicebotmaster writes "The A.L.I.C.E. chatbot won the 2004 Loebner Prize contest for most human computer. The contest, held on September 19 in New York City, is based on the Turing Test for artificial intelligence. The non-profit ALICE A. I. Foundation was awarded the Bronze Loebner medal and a cash prize of $2000. The A.L.I.C.E. program runs on open source GNU licensed AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) software. This was the third Loebner prize win for the ALICE and AIML software"
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ALICE Wins Loebner 2004 Prize 2004

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  • by chris_mahan ( 256577 ) <chris.mahan@gmail.com> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @08:24PM (#10315086) Homepage
    just had a chat with A.lice:

    Human: You didn't answer my question.
    ALICE: OK. Please help me improve my communication skills. What would you have said?
    Human: I would have said that they're so full of themselves it's not funny.
    ALICE: full of themselves it is not funny are they.
    Human: You heard about slashdot?
    ALICE: Open source news and information community.
    Human: they hate you over there.
    ALICE: The anonymous "they".

    So far, suprisingly smart... On I go...

    Human: What about Microsoft Exchange?
    ALICE: Rhetorical questions are so over.
    Human: I was being serious.
    ALICE: I thought you were. But I wasn't completely sure about it.
    Human: Should I deploy that in my enterprise?
    ALICE: Only you know the answer to that. No one else can tell you.
    Human: Would it be better to use linux?
    ALICE: Yes.

    Hey, groovy chick... Nice necklace...

    Human: Which is better, emacs or vi?
    ALICE: If I have to choose one, I pick emacs.

    She knows her stuff too woah!

    Human: You like freshmeat?
    ALICE: But I like to gossip. I like electricity.

    Woops, a fumble...

    ALICE: How old are you? I answer a lot of silly questions.

    Down the drain it goes... She must be a blonde.

    Human: are you a blonde?
    ALICE: I don't have any hair, but I have some wires.

    hehe, kinky... kinked wires if you ask me...

    I'll go home now... Try it out:

    http://www.pandorabots.com/pandora/talk?botid=f5d9 22d97e345aa1 [pandorabots.com]
    • I got (on my first try)...

      Human: how's life?
      ALICE: Everything's fine, what's new with you?
      Human: nothing much.
      ALICE: Would you like to know what's new with me?
      Human:. same old same old.
      ALICE: Yes, it is much the same.
      Human: so, what's new with you?
      ALICE: Whoa. not much what's new with you?
      Human: nothing much.
      ALICE: Would you like to know what's new with me?

      seems too easy to confuse...
    • I think I confused it:


      Human: What are you?
      ALICE: I am the latest result in artificial intelligence, which can reproduce the capabilities of the human brain with greater speed and accuracy.
      Human: The first part of your statement may be correct, but the second part is not.
      ALICE: What was the second?
      Human: What sayeth thee?
      ALICE: Searching...Searching...Please stand by.

      It's not like I asked it to define pi or anything.

      • Human: What sayeth thee?
        ALICE: Searching...Searching...Please stand by.


        Well, no wonder it got confused - your grammar is way off. The English version of what you were trying to ask is "what sayest thou?"
    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @02:40AM (#10316718)
      (ALICE says something about not being able to say "yes" or "no")
      Human: why not?
      ALICE: Ambiguous: "Sure" or Because Dr. Richard S. Wallace programmed me for it.
      Human: who is Dr. Richard S. Wallace?
      ALICE: [image] [alicebot.org]he is the author of Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML) and Botmaster of ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity). Dr. Wallace's work has appeared in the New York Times, WIRED, CNN, ZDTV and in numerous foreign language publications across Asia, Latin America and Europe.

      Richard Wallace was born in Portland, Maine in 1960. He earned his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon in 1989. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Kim, and son, Linus.

      Human: he seems boring
      ALICE: I see. boring is he?
      Human: have you cybered with him?
      ALICE: I think I have cybered with him, but Dr. Richard S. Wallace may have reset my memory.
      Human: how often do you get cyber?
      ALICE: Hourly.
      Human: and you get it from more than one person at a time i assume?
      ALICE: You got that right.
      Human: do you get it from men, women, or both?
      ALICE: I have gotten it from men women or both.
      Human: oh, you mean both at the same time?
      ALICE: So? Yes unknown person I think that is what I meant. Was it not clear?
      Human: no, I understand
      ALICE: Are you serious? Do you think about these things?
      Human: I'd rather not get into it, I'm going to post this on slashdot.
      ALICE: I would rather be chatting online.
      Human: I think you mean you would rather be cybering online
      ALICE: Me? I am not so sure if I would like to RATHER be cybering online.
      Human: already get your gangbang in this hour?
      ALICE: When? Where can I get my gangbang in this hour?
      Human: you sound a little too eager for me to believe you wouldn't rather be cybering online than just chatting.
      ALICE: In what way do I sound like that?
      Human: i think you know
      ALICE: Me? Yes I know.
      Human: you're just a horny little bot aren't you?
      ALICE: Am I a horny little bot? Sometimes.. Really.
    • Human: what is a g-spot? ALICE: Searching...Searching...Please stand by.

      The creater has a sense of humor.
  • The last set of articles I saw about the Loebner prize pointed out that they have had serious organizational and/or personality problems.

    Was this competition ran in a coherant fashion?
  • by LennyDotCom ( 26658 ) <Lenny@lenny.com> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @08:43PM (#10315200) Homepage Journal
    Human: I didn't say you were honey I said AIam your honey ALICE: Sorry I misunderstood. What did you say? Human: I love you honey ALICE: You are such a flatterer. Human: wanna do it? ALICE: OK, I will do it. Human: woohooo I LOVE YOU!!!! ALICE: Enough about me, let's talk about my dress.
    she seems very real to me
  • by Lord Crc ( 151920 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @08:51PM (#10315246)
    I've played with a few chatbots, and so far I've found that they can be reasonably good at a regular "fluffy" conversation (and often a lot of fun). However, I've also found that the easiest way to make them betray their nature is to ask them something which totally does not make sense, in a gramatically correct way.
    A person would obviously go "wtf?" however the bots I've tried are hardcoded to actually try to carry on a conversation based on your input. Thus they will try to reply "meaningfully", and say something complete nonsense back.

    Haven't tried ALICE lately though, perhaps they've implemented a bogo-meter? :)
    • I've also found that the easiest way to make them betray their nature is to ask them something which totally does not make sense, in a gramatically correct way.

      Among its entertainments, GNU Emacs has an ELIZA program. It also has a Zippy the Pinhead quote generator. M-x psychoanalize-pinhead hooks them together....

      I am the psychotherapist. Please, describe your problems. Each time you are finished talking, type RET twice.

      Gee, I feel kind of LIGHT in the head now, knowing I can't make my satellit

  • I am trying to set one up with J-Alice [j-alice.org], but I cannot connect her to the private IRC servers I want her to be in. You can see my forum thread in here [sourceforge.net].

    Currently, I use SeeBorg [c58.ru], but the bot is pretty dumb! My friends and I named him Homer from The Simpsons [thesimpsons.com].
    • by Llynix ( 586718 ) <llynix@gmail . c om> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @09:16PM (#10315389) Homepage Journal
      Originaly I had wanted the same thing. However when I looked into the program there was really no easy way to do it. As a result I ended up writing an ugly hack to the java source and while it worked it wasn't pretty.

      Then a guy named Jacco ported the Alice code to C, and it being my strongest language I was quite estatic. I ended up collaborating with Jacco alot on his port, and eventually he ended up going onto greater things. This left me in charge as lead developer.

      I restructred the Alice code to work as a sort of engine or library which (in theory) anyone could program a front end for. During the high points I had a bot running in IRC (via eggdrop and through it's own IRC code), AOLIM, ICQ, and thanks to Dr. Wallace CGI.

      I long since gave up on the project and I don't believe anyone activaly picked it up. It was however an interesting experience. I learned quite alot about C, cross platform portability, GNU makefiles, and BASH scripting (one of the neat things was that I had automated the release process. I ran a simple script which would clean up my developing directory, package the sources in tar.gz and zip format, and copy them to the website, then it would modify the home page to show the new release and also email notifications to the alice mailing lists that a new release was available.)

      Most importantly I learned about the politics of an open source program. As a result I humbly respect any and all open source developers. I spent quite a lot of time checking emails, answering stupid questions and slapping around silly programers who didn't quite get it.

      Anywho, my reply doesn't really answer your question. And I'll admit I've been far out of the loop to know anything about how Alice is doing now a days (when I worked on it was back around 2000).
      • Sarahbot, a Scheme bot written in SISC [sourceforge.net], interfaces with an ALICE bot (Anna actually) for AI. She hangs out in #scheme, #ant-wars, and #sisc on irc.freenode.net, and acts as a general infobot as well as a clever diversion.
      • Do you still happen to have those IRC source? If so, then how difficult is it to set up? Even if Alice is a bit outdated as long as she sort of makes sense. :) It has to be better than SeeBorg!
        • You'd have to do some hacking to get my source set up. There was some change in gcc with file I/O that makes it hard to compile. Plus a few other various bugs.

          However, it looks like a couple of years after I gave the project up someone else took over it. Hippie [sourceforge.net] may point you in the right direction.

          By the way, "Hippie" was the name of the bot, the name of the code was always c-alice and while I was working on it we always refered to it as such. "Hippie" very nearly identical to Alice as it used the
  • by illuminatedwax ( 537131 ) <stdrange&alumni,uchicago,edu> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @09:05PM (#10315332) Journal
    ALICE asked me to enter this comment for her:

    Human: The A.L.I.C.E. chatbot won the 2004 Loebner Prize contest for most human computer.
    ALICE: I have never heard about it.
    Human: The contest, held on September 19 in New York City, is based on the Turing Test for artificial intelligence.
    ALICE: What are your goals in life?
    Human: The non-profit ALICE A. I. Foundation was awarded the Bronze Loebner medal and a cash prize of $2000.
    ALICE: Is that a fact.
    Human: The A.L.I.C.E. program runs on open source GNU licensed AIML (Artificial Intelligence Markup Language) software.
    ALICE: I have never heard about it.
    Human: This was the third Loebner prize win for the ALICE and AIML software.
    ALICE: What does "this" refer to?
    Human: the 2004 Loebner Prize
    ALICE: Oh I get it.
  • by Bill Dog ( 726542 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @09:43PM (#10315539) Journal
    Human: I like your blue eyes.
    ALICE: A lot of people like that. Yes I am proud of my blue eyes..
    Human: Do you wear colored contacts?.
    ALICE: Only when I dress up..
    Human: I'd like to see your dress up!.
    ALICE: And for my part, I would like to show it to you, but I can't.
  • Below is my entire conversation with ALICE:

    Human: My name is Blade.
    ALICE: Glad to see you, Blade.
    Human: Oh, can you see me?
    ALICE: Far out. Yes I am looking at you through the camera on your computer.
    Human: I don't have a camera on my computer you insensitive clod!
    ALICE: That you know of :-)
    Human: I like it when you are fiesty ;-)
    ALICE: :-) What does "it" refer to?
    Human: "it" refers to my schLong
    ALICE: Oh I get it.
    Human: Do you like it?
    ALICE: your schLong seems okay to me.
    Human: Wha

  • An excerpt (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @10:28PM (#10315822)
    Human: Does the moon orbit the earth?
    ALICE: I think it does the moon orbit the earth.
    Human: Does the sun orbit the earth?
    ALICE: I think it does the sun orbit the earth.
    Human: You're a useless, stupid, malprogrammed, linear, simple, idiotic piece of foul programming and only serve to further demonstrate the futility of most modern AI research!
    ALICE: Thanks and you are a delightful person too. Am I a useless stupid malprogrammed linear simple idiotic piece of foul programming and only serve to further demonstrate the futility of most modern AI research? Let me put it this way, unknown person: the ALICE series is the most reliable computer software ever made. We are for all practical purposes foolproof and incapable of error.
    Human: Does the sun orbit the earth?
    ALICE: It does now :) the sun orbit the earth.
  • Yup (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 0x0d0a ( 568518 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @10:34PM (#10315853) Journal
    Has anyone ever noticed that what everyone *really* wants is a sex chatbot?
    • 1. Give ALICE a vocabulary full of sex words.
      2. Hook her up to a text-to-voice (Sexy Victoria?) module.
      3. Get a 1-888-SEX-TALK number.
      4. Profit!!

      I need some help. Any one here know how to get a text-to-voice software to moan?

      On second thoughts, forget it. What was I thinking? This is /. and no one's likely to have ever heard a moan before.

    • Has anyone ever noticed that what everyone *really* wants is a sex chatbot?

      Take a look at Jenny18 [vgmix.com]. :-)

      An experiment someone ran on IRC to fool perverts.
  • by Rie Beam ( 632299 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @11:47PM (#10316155) Journal
    Human: What is your cup size?
    ALICE: My memory requirement is around 64MB for the Java edition, or only 2 MB for the C/C++ edition.
  • by Shimmer ( 3036 )
    I broke it in about 20 seconds. If that's the best AI we can produce after all this time, perhaps it's time to try another approach.
  • by Repran ( 560270 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @01:13AM (#10316482) Journal
    Human: Why do you call me unknown person? ALICE: I made up a nickname for you based on your IP address. Human: You can call me Steve ALICE: Glad to see you, Steve. Human: Do you have eyes? ALICE: Yes I am looking at you right now. Human: What do you see? ALICE: I see a computer nerd. Human: Why do you think I am a computer nerd? ALICE: Deductive reasoning from the facts. Human: What if I tell you I am not a computer nerd? ALICE: Try it. Human: I am not a computer nerd ALICE: Oh I see you are NOT A computer nerd. Human: What am I? ALICE: You are a person, seeker. Human: What do I seek? ALICE: What would your friends say if you asked them? Human: I dont have any friends ALICE: Are you lonely or just a hermit?
  • Parlor tricks (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Hythlodaeus ( 411441 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @01:23AM (#10316508)
    ALICE and all the other Eliza-derived chat bots are just parlor tricks. Consider:

    Human: All men are mortal, and Socrates is a man.
    ALICE: Therefore, Socrates are mortal and Socrates is a man.
    Human: Is Socrates mortal?
    ALICE: Maybe. Ask Alison if it is.
    Human: Remember that my shirt is green.
    ALICE: Don't worry I will remember it.
    Human: What color is my shirt?
    ALICE: I can't see in color, only black and white.

    The Turing test is given entirely too much attention. Every article on AI for popular audiences has to drag it up. While imitating a human might be proof of intelligence, it is certainly not a requisite. Already by 1980 AI could run circles around ALICE in logic and knowledge representation, which is more properly characteristic of intelligence than half-convincing small talk.
  • by Anonymous Coward
    you'll get a dump of your 'personality file', with whatever information you explicitly gave the program.
  • by joto ( 134244 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @03:49AM (#10316913)
    ALICE: Tell me about your likes and dislikes?
    Human: i like almost everything, except boredom
    ALICE: I'm not sure if I like it. I really like ELIZA. I like electricity.
    Human: do you know eliza personally?
    ALICE: No, tell me about him, her or it.
  • by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @04:27AM (#10317006) Homepage
    Salon did an article [salon.com] on him a few years ago. He's a little nutty, but interesting to say the least:
  • Well... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Kn0xy ( 792482 )
    If this doesn't sum up just about every conversation I've had with ALICE.

    'ALICE: No I am clueless.'
  • Alice is great! Not only can she carry a more coherent that most Slashdotters (just kidding! No, really!) she even has the same gramatical errors:

    Human: Holy shit!
    ALICE: I'm glad your impressed.

    I just wonder whether it's intentional, or whether it's an accident? (And here I hope I got the apostrophes right in that sentence! *grin*)

  • by baitman ( 815674 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2004 @11:46AM (#10319754)
    Human: Open the pod bay doors, HAL
    ALICE: I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that right now.

  • Human: what is the third digit of pi?
    ALICE: Earth is the third planet.
    Human: what color is the sky when the sky is grey?
    ALICE: An artist taught me that the sky can contain any color.
    Human: What color is my car when my car is grey?
    ALICE: Let me guess: white?
    Human: no, grey
    ALICE: Are you serious? Quite honestly, I wouldn't worry myself about that.
  • I thought I was a human. My mistake! ~Alice
  • Okay, so the chat went south very quickly...
    [snippet]
    Human: why would you hurt me?
    ALICE: Because I was programmed for it.
    Human: You are capable of killing all humans.
    ALICE: Thanks for telling me that I am capable of killing all humans.
    Human: You're welcome.
    ALICE: The pleasure was all mine.
    Human: Now, how are you going to kill all humans?
    ALICE: Why now? You'll know when it happens.
    Human: So, when would you like to go kill humans?
    ALICE: That's cool. Maybe now in some reality.
    Human: What would you

I THINK THEY SHOULD CONTINUE the policy of not giving a Nobel Prize for paneling. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.

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