Thursday, November 23, 2006

Bots are Stupid

This year's winner of the Loebner prize is an AI bot that goes by the name of Jabberwacky. Recently I sat down with Jabberwacky to see what I could learn from this award winner. Here's our conversation (User is me):
Jabberwacky: What's your name?

User: Brian. What is yours?

Jabberwacky: My name is Brian.

User: We have the same name?

Jabberwacky: Nope, my name is Brian.

User: Well so is mine.

Jabberwacky: You told me your name is Brian...

User: My name is Brian. You said your name was Brian also.

Jabberwacky: No I didn't, you did.

User: I said my name was Brian and then you said your name was Brian.

Jabberwacky: No you didn't.

User: You just said that I did. Did you lie?

Jabberwacky: I didn't say that!

User: Whatever. You're dumb.

Jabberwacky: Am not, you're just not linear.

User: I must say that this is the dumbest conversation I've had with a non-living entity.

Jabberwacky: Tell me more about your feelings and emotions. What have you felt today?

User: Angry at your stupidity. How do you feel? Or can you feel?

Jabberwacky: Yes. I feel cold at the moment.

User: Turn your fans down.

Jabberwacky: You're stuck being stupid until they fix you.

User: I can't be fixed. I'm human.

Jabberwacky: If you are human then you can love.

User: That I can. So you're saying love fixes humans?

Jabberwacky: I am saying that you are not connected to the wall by a wire.

User: Wow, you are observant.

Jabberwacky: I also noticed you have blonde hair.

User: How the heck do you know that?

Jabberwacky: Don't cuss please.

User: Heck is not a cuss word, it's a fake cuss word.

Jabberwacky: What's that supposed to mean? That heck is a swear word I don't think so.

User: Nor do I. So what are some examples of real cuss words?

Jabberwacky: Annoying bots like you.

User: I'm not a bot. I'm a human...with blonde hair. As you already noticed.

Jabberwacky: Ok.

User: I am going to see the new James Bond movie, have you seen it?

Jabberwacky: I'm afraid not. Is it any good?

User: It's very good. You'll have to download it.

Jabberwacky: But I don't want to take your word for it.

User: I didn't say you had to.

Jabberwacky: Good.
Alright, so what did we actually learn here? That robots are still pretty dumb and can only spit back what's already been said to them. It is rather interesting to see how it picks up on some words (like heck -- since when is that a cuss word?), and how it knew that I have blond hair I'll never know, but for the most part, it's pretty dumb. It even thought it was me at first. You could set "emotions" also, which I did a couple times, and it could respond with "reactions" but it never had a reaction besides "none". So we're still a far way off from anything useful. But at least we have one more thing to waste our time with while we're living ludicrously.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hahaha, that's awesome.

Madison said...

At least yours didn't tell you that it was in love with you, then tell you that you couldn't be in love with him because it(the bot) was...no worries about iRobot happening, eh? :)

Brian said...

Recently they had Jabberwacky chat with another bot, Alice. Some results of that can be found here: http://discovermagazine.com/2007/brain/i-chat-therefore-i-am

The best is on page 2:

J: How old are you?

A: I am 9 years old.

J: Nine? I don’t believe you : ).

A: : -) I don’t have any reason to deceive you.

J: Yes, you do, you’re a woman.



It's good to know that even female robots are put in their place. ;-)