ANN: Loebner Prize 2011 - Preliminary Information

[Hugh Loebner]

 
Announcement

Loebner Prize “The First Turing Test”
The 21st Annual Loebner Prize Competition
19 October 2011 at the University of Exeter, UK
 
$7000 Total Prize Money and the Annual Bronze Medal
 
First Place $4000 and the Annual Bronze Medal
Second Place $1000
Third Place $500
Fourth Place $250
 
In addition, for the first time in its history, there will also be a
Junior Loebner Prize where secondary school pupils will act as judges
to decide whether computers can “think”. This contest will feature
additional, smaller, prizes.
 
The College of Engineering Mathematics and Physical Sciences at the
University of Exeter in the UK will be hosting the Loebner Prize, the
internationally renowned competition to find a “thinking computer.”
 
Located in Devon, England, the University of Exeter is a top-ranked
institution of higher education in the UK. The University was the
winner of the ‘Times Higher University of the Year’ award in 2007/8
after being runner up for three years in a row. Nearly 90% of its
research is rated as internationally recognized, and every subject it
teaches has been assessed as including world-leading research.
 
Contestants for the Loebner Prize are invited to submit computer
programs whose responses to questions can imitate the responses of a
human. It is the task of judges, when comparing the responses of the
computers and humans in side-by-side interactions, to decide which is
the human and which is the computer.
 
This task to compare human and computer responses, is known as “The
Turing Test” after the British polymath Alan M. Turing who first
proposed the test in 1950. Programs passing the test can be judged to
be thinking.  Despite annual improvements, so far no machine has
passed.
 
 
 
 
 

[STJensen]

Perhaps in future years, you can have satellite competitions in major
countries whose winners then are flown to the "main event" in
England. Airline ticket and hotel room covered. The first year you
do this, I'd suggest three satellite competitions in the US, Japan,
and China. Talk to universities in countries and see who would be
willing to host these. Only allow contestants to enter their program
into one of the satellites and only if they're from that region/
country.

Good luck!

Scott Jensen

[Neon]

I used to have long chats with the 'ALICE' bot, (pandora.com) but the
conversations wer'nt 'remembered' for the duration of the chat, and
although 'ALICE' has access to jabberwocky and encylopaedias it was
difficult to prompt straight answers to some obvious questions.
Terrific fun tho.

[Neon]

..and I managed to get a script for an 'ELIZA' programme and devised a
couple of characters so the all answered one another back ..... I left
them running , cos time permitting and bank balance low...thinking
that they would run out of chat. I left an 'environmental contingency'
bot that triggered when only humans were within range...and ALICE did
seem to learn from my simple ELIZA bots after sometime...over a week.
1 was an answering machine bot with messges, 2 was a 'baby bot' childs
first language, 3 was a dog, so if anyone came to the door or
mentioned certain subjects it would bark and the actions were texted,
4. 'nosey neighbourhood' bot, that triggered whenever a human came
within range, and made comments about them, 5 'smut bot' which would
make some lascivious remark and suggestion. My ALICE bot actually sold
itself..which I thought was terrific....because I hate marketing