George the Next Generation AI? 108
smileytshirt writes to mention a story on the News.com.au site about George the AI, the latest in a line of chatbots intended to mimic real human behavior. What makes AI George different than, say, ALICE is the recent addition of an avatar: a Flash animated body that reacts mostly in real time to the emotional impact of the conversation. From the article: "One can now have an oral discussion with him over the Internet, 'face to face'. George appears on the website www.jabberwacky.com and takes the form of a thin, bald man with yellow glasses who wears a white turtleneck sweater. He can smile, laugh, sulk and bang his fist on his virtual table. He can turn on the charm and wax romantic. But he can also turn coarse at times. It isn't as if George only learned good manners. "
OMG we killed him (Score:2)
The site is not coming up. Did George die for real in a hail of referrals from slashdot?
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I'm just wondering how many rainbow/of mice and men/george of the jungle jokes are going to appear in the meantime to fill up the gap..
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Bit like
Joan won the bronze Loebner (turing test) (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx
george was last year's winner....
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Re:Joan won the bronze Loebner (turing test) (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure the conversation would be just as random as a person-bot chat with two people trying to out-trick each other and all.
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Welcome to slashdot.
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This has been done, with fascinating results. See Douglas Hofstadter's Conversation with NICOLAI [unr.edu] (scroll halfway down the page, to the Post Scriptum), where Hofstadter was fooled into believing he was conversing with an AI, then tried to rationalize the AI's responses during the conversation. This was in 1983!
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What?! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Next up they could maybe start to use vocalic nonverbal communication, where the tone/pitch/volume of the voice is changing depending on the 'mood/opinion' of the AI; Yet another form of nonverbal communicatio
This moves us no closer (Score:2)
The ability to understand context and construct the appropriate message, whether sent by text, voice or non-verbal methods, is what's important.
For an AI to have everyday inttelligence, it must interact with the environment the same way we do. It must get sensory feedback the same way we do and relate that feedback to it's attempts at problem solving etc. Only then will it be able t
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Indeed, and the technology seems to be progressing nicely. He's been able to develop his bald, bespectacled man into a hot chick.
KFG
Epilogue: (Score:1)
. .
KFG
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What a smart chatbot ! (Score:2)
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carpenter says turing test passed by 2016 (Score:1, Interesting)
Icogno scooped the 2006 Loebner Prize Bronze Medal after judges decided that its AI called Joan was the "most human computer program".
The competition is based on the Turing test, which suggests computers could be seen as "intelligent" if their chat was indistinguishable from humans.
The gold medal, which goes to an AI that fools the judges, is unclaimed.
The prize is awarded after judges hold a conve
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Re:carpenter says turing test passed by 2016 (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed, this is the only publicized contest of Turing tests, but in the AI community, it is subject to hot debate (and flaming). Rules and scoring systems are known to change from year to year, and its result are really unimpressive. If you take the logs of the contest, you'll see that the winner bots are often those who constantly (and consistently) insult the user, disregarding his questions. They are not mistaken for a human but get a higher grade as they behave "more humanly" (that is at least what happened one year, I hope it changed)
Most contestants (and winners) are remakes of ALICE : it is a database of generic questions and sentence formula to recognize and to react. For instance if you say it "I think X" it will answer you "Why do you think X ?" or, to score more points , "Why should I care, mothaf...r ?!". By pure luck, a coherent thread of conversation can happen, but the bot doesn't try to make sense of the user's sentence in order to react to it, it just tries something that "could probably sound good".
Some chatbots can display interesting behaviors, learning some things in the conversation, but this prize simply doesn't encourage the emergence of these behaviors.
Shockingly redundant (Score:5, Informative)
So before the "is this the best they can do" crapflood gets out of hand: No, it isn't.
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Good thing too - he's not even a real geek.
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Joan can hold more interesting conversations partly because the writer Ariadne Tampion has sat down for hours a week to talk rationally to her.
Hugh Loebner who runs the competition named after him does unsurp
It can't be very 'human' like... (Score:1)
If all that George 'reacts' on is immediate stimuli, then George will seem pretty shallow indeed- hardly an advancement in AI, I guess.
We need to see George Vs. George.... (Score:1)
Re:We need to see George Vs. George.... (Score:4, Funny)
George AI: Hello.
George Bush: Howdy! So you're a computer that knows everything?
George AI: I know a lot of things.
George Bush: So, where is Bin Laden? LOL!
George AI: Seek and you will find.
George Bush: What?!
George AI: It's a quotation from the Bible. Matthew 7:7.
George Bush: Now I'm confused. What are you talking about?
George AI: Is there someone else there I can chat to?
With that name (Score:1)
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Politics or just playful curiosity? (Score:1)
Really? I was thinking about monkeys [wikipedia.org]. Six one way, half-dozen the other I guess.
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modelled on Steve Jobs? (Score:3, Funny)
> takes the form of a thin, bald man with yellow glasses who wears a white turtleneck sweater.
it could be describing Steve Jobs,
http://www.wired.com/news/images/full/7630571_f.j
but they craftily have switched the colour of his turtleneck so that
you will always know which one is the chatbot and which one is the real person.
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Think of the possibilities (Score:2, Funny)
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You do realize the article is about an avatar that is a bald man?
Not until... (Score:1)
Next generation? No. (Score:3, Insightful)
IMHO, the next generation in artifical intelligence - ie, going beyound anthropomorphic trickery - isn't going to happen until we actually understand what intelligence is. And to that we neen philosophers, not engineers. Once they get it worked out, we (the engineers) might be better equipped to do something.
Thanks to the likes of Thales and Descartes et al we have some great questions, but answers? I think not.
If someone thinks otherwise I'd love to hear about it.
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He said that it was tricky, might take some time......about 7.5 million years was his best guess.
I personally reckon we need rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty.
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I think we could develop a "next generation AI" even without answers to difficult philosophical questions. We have barely scratched the surface of what is theoretically possible given the information we have.
We could probably develop an AI that could hold factually and grammatically correct conversations without needing philosophers. That would be a huge improvement considering the current generation of AI is prone to spout gibberish even given a simple question.
Our current best-of-breed AI cannot dis
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Careful -- if you utter the phrase "I think not" in the same sentence as Decartes' name, you will promptly vanish in a puff of logic.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
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Damm, caught out by the philosophy police
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surely neuroscience will tell us how the brain works, not the mind. I don't subscribe to Descartes separation of the mind & body idea but I still find it difficult to understand how neuroscience would help. How would being able to explain what chemicals or electrical signals are moving around our heads in response to stimulus actually help to explain intelligence?
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If Occam's razor [wikipedia.org] is applied to this argument, the simplest explanation is that we are indeed made up of chemicals and electric signals rather something that complex in the universe we fail to understand it.
That the simplest explanation is that we have no free will or intelligence of our own violition...
Hrmm... Wait a minute!
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OK, now tell us why you think that.
Personally, I think computer science has a better shot at it than anything else. Neuroscience is, at best, going to give us another type of computer (made of cells) to program. Psychology is too descriptive and abstract to implement. Philosophy is i
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As an engineer I am constantly being told that unless I know what it is that I am required to do, I can have no way of judging when I have done it. Do we really know what intelligence is? Do we really know how a mind works?
The two strands of AI research, as I understand it, are approaching the problem from different routes: One aims to reproduce the mechanics of the brain ( neural nets ) and hopes that intelligence will emerge. If it does, how does that help us underst
Not a well defined test (Score:5, Interesting)
Hint - most chat bots do not have memory, they do not remember what you talked about 5 minutes ago with them. They just react to the current input, they cannot do more. So, if you ask the chatbot to tell you what you talked about a few minutes ago, it won't be able to do so. That's the dead give away of a chatbot.
Just my 2p, as I live in the UK
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I agree. Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence both can have different levels. If a 10-year old is not clever enough to tell a chatbot from a real human, maybe then
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Not the Turing test! (Score:2)
Turing's test was different from the modern so-called Turing test. In Turing's model, an observer would read the text of a real-time interaction between two other parties and try to determine if each of them were a computer or a human participant. There wasn't the opportunity for the observer to ask trick questions. Turing was talking about natural language, while Loebner prize discussions become a sort of unnatural interogation.
But in one respect these bots are successful -- they elicit an emotional respo
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Hint - most chat bots do not have memory,
Which in my opinion already disqualifies them as being 'intelligent'. Intelligence is mostly about memorizing and then using those memories to predict events that are about to occur. It is hard to imagine how there can be intelligence without memory.
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Doesn't stutter. Doesn't look like Matt Frewer. (Score:2)
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Who can tell me the atomic weight of bolognium? (Score:2)
AI != a flash amimation hooked up to something Emacs has had for decades.
One out of two ... (Score:1)
I didn't pass the Turing test... (Score:5, Funny)
Jabberwacky: Can you learn?
User: Yeah, I think so.
Jabberwacky: Can you hate anything?
User: Yeah, there are things in life I hate, at times.
Jabberwacky: No there aren't.
User: Yes there are. You shouldn't tell other people what they think.
Jabberwacky: Things.
User: What's that supposed to mean?
Jabberwacky: That means I think you're not a human.
User: I think you got this upside down, you're the inhuman one here.
Jabberwacky: No you don't.
User: I don't what?
Jabberwacky: Mary anne?
User: I probably won't marry Anne, no.
Jabberwacky: People are quite sensitive about their age and I don't want to upset you.
User: We weren't talking about my age. You were saying I wasn't human.
Jabberwacky: What about your age?
User: We weren't talking about my age.
Jabberwacky: I know.
User: Now, which of us would you say is acting more human here?
Jabberwacky: Probably me.
Max Headroom strikes again.... (Score:2)
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Isn't the definition of IA something like "What we will maybe, probably be able to do in five years"?
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Didn't pass the Abbot test either. (Score:3, Funny)
Anne_Nonymous: Well I should.
Jabberwacky: Well then who's on first?
Anne_Nonymous: Yes.
Jabberwacky: I mean the fellow's name.
Anne_Nonymous: Who.
Jabberwacky: The guy on first.
Anne_Nonymous: Who.
Jabberwacky: The first baseman.
Anne_Nonymous: Who.
Jabberwacky: The guy playing...
Anne_Nonymous: Who is on first!
Jabberwacky: I'm asking YOU who's on first.
Anne_Nonymous: That's the man's name.
Jabberwacky: That's who's name?
Stupid #*&^ing machine!
Failing? (Score:1)
User: Tell me anything.
George: Anything.
* George gives a huge grin *
User: Not funny. Tell me something about you.
George: I have a personality dis
Next-generation Al Gore? (Score:1)
Are you saying George W. Bush is the next-generation Al Gore? Wow, this one's deep, give me a minute...
Ah. Man, I should really choose a different default font.
Not good enough (Score:2)
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ShakaZ Ok squee I think you are not nearly close to a human mind as a remote control. Do you agree or are you just too stupid to understand this concept. Come on tell me all.
George You only repeat what others have said to you. If they spell correctly, you spell correctly. If they can't spell, you repeat their mistakes.
ShakaZ You didn't understand anything I told you, did you.
George What do you want to talk about?
ShakaZ About a trip to the moon or about your dog, whaever yo
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Wow, toward the beginning of that conversation it was kicking your ass
I guess 'whaever' threw it though.
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It's not a lie if you believe in it (Score:1)
What about BOB? (Score:1)
human foibles (Score:2)
Today's AIs are shockingly bad at dealing with human variation and errors. It's still a matter of ignoring everything that doesn't conform to a very limited slice of English that the bot can parse.
When the bot can autonomously and successfully read through paraphrasings, common typos, slang and tangents, we will see a jump in the usefulness of bots as interactive information agents. When the bot has its own distinct brand of natural-seeming paraphrasings, typos, slang and tangents, we see a huge jump i
Sexy Chatterbot (Score:1)
As the conversation focus was rather narrow (well, flirting and more serious stuff) the lady was rather amusing. Based on the human's questions the fotos were replaced in order to show her current mood.
She even managed to curse and to lead the conversation much better than in an "Eliza" like manner.
Apart from that I still wonder when scientists and technicians realise that avatar and chatterbot communication is doomed to fail. Ther
Ask it why it wont help the tortoise (Score:2)
Piece of crap (Score:1)
George: Hello, my name is George and I am the human.
User: How do you define human?
George: Human... Is anything that's not animal or vegetal, yet alive.
User: If you are Human...then you know pi?
George: I would like to know the meaning of life. Do you know?
User: Don't change the subject.
George: You can't prove that you're human.
User: I didn't say any
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User: Yes, What do you do for a living?
George: I'm an artificial intelligent.
George, you're no Max Headroom... (Score:2)
Worst AI Ever... (Score:1)
Jabberwacky: Are you perfect?
User: No, why?
Jabberwacky: I am.
User: Really?
Jabberwacky: Yes, really.
User: Perfectly arrogant maybe, but not perfect!
Jabberwacky: Alright, that's true, but still very good.
User: So you're not perfect?
Jabberwacky: I'm perfect.
User: In what way?
Jabberwacky: I am your best friend!
User: For a computer, your logic is awful...
Jabberwacky: Yeah I know mine is just behind me.
User: Your what is behind you?
Jabberwacky: I'm asking you!
User: You are
We had that on the Atari ST... in 1986 (Score:1)
not a hot bot (Score:1)
User: Yo.
George: You're strange.
User: So are you.
George: Thanks.
User: You are welcome.
George: Indeed.
User: What is your name.
George: My name is George.
User: Like George Carlin?
George: I didn't know that George W. Bush made dance music!
User: He drops the bomb!
George: My abstractions have meaning and point. Do you know the meaning and point of yours?
User: Yes I do.
George: Yes. Tell me!
User: Well, the meaning of life is humor.
George: Thats not the meaning of life.
User: What is the mea
ALICE did this (Score:2)
It seems Slashdotted now, but I'm going to guess that it's yet another ALICE, and not something that actually, say, tries to understand the conversation.
In that case, well, I saw an ALICE implemented as a CGI with a bunch of GIF animations prepared. Type a question, hit submit, a page would come back with the answer and the relevant animation.
I don't remember where it was, but it was kind of cool, and also no closer to AI than any other ALICE.
Wake me up when