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Jabberwock Scoops Artificial Intelligence Prize

October 21, 2003

On his 47th birthday, Juergen Pirner, head of Abenteuer Medien Verlag, a Hamburg-based magazine publishing house, won this year's Loebner Prize Contest, hosted by the Digital World Research Centre at the University of Surrey on 18 October 2003.

'Jabberwock', in Juergen's view is the proof that any fan of fantasy and sci-fi stories and games who can write, would have the ability to create a Chatterbot as well. He says that they are easy to build, requiring only the ability to write funny interactive stories and dialogues and to create a fictional character as in a role playing game.   

Speaking today, Juergen's initial reaction was: "I am very honoured and very happy to have won this prize!"

But he believes that Chatterbots are not the right instruments to prove intelligence in computers: "The ability to talk and hold conversation is not the same as intelligence, especially if the conversation is done by typing words at a computer keyboard. In my opinion Chatterbots are part of the literature field and not part of artificial intelligence."

The Contest is based on the Turing Test of artificial intelligence. Alan Turing, the brilliant British mathematician, asked, "Can computers think, and if so, how would we know?" Turing suggested that if the responses from the computer were indistinguishable from that of a human, it could be said that the computer was thinking.

Computers' ability to communicate will determine humans' future relationships with them. Chatterbots (talking computers) has the potential to deliver better customer service and reduce costs - but only if the customers understand and trust them.

In 1990 Dr Hugh Loebner agreed to underwrite a test designed to implement the Turing Test. The Contest addresses this question by comparing computers with humans. A panel of judges rated computers for "humanness" by holding conversations through typing at terminals, each of which is connected either to a programme or a real person.

Eight finalists competed for the grand prize of $100,000 and a gold medal, with four finalists from the USA, two from Germany and one each from Mexico and the UK. The UK was represented by Rollo Carpenter's program Jabberwacky.

The Contest was preceded by a business seminar, Bots Mean Business, which explored the capabilities and benefits of chatterbots and related natural language technology in the business world.

Lynne Hamill, Executive Director of the Digital World Research Centre, said, "The Loebner Prize Contest demonstrates how we could all relate to technology in the future. At present, people are struggling to cope in the digital world. But friendly computer interfaces that speak everyday English will help bridge the digital divide."

Dr Hugh Loebner attended the event at Surrey and concluded: "There is a nobility in this endeavour. If we humans can succeed in developing an artificial intellect it will be a measure of the scope of our intellect."

The first two 'winners' were humans, but the 'computer winners' of the competition are listed below. The numbers shown are the mean of the judges' humanness ratings on a scale of 0 to 5.

Winner of the Bronze Award - Jabberwock (Juergen Pirner) - 1.928 - German
4th - Elbot (Fred Roberts) - 1.678 - American working in Germany
5th equal - Eugene Goostmann (Vladimir Veselov) - 1.644    - Russian living in America
5th equal - Jabberwacky (Rollo Carpenter) - 1.644   - British
7th - Lucy (Saskia van der Elst) - 1.378 - Mexican
8th - Markbot (Mark Connell) - 1.311   - American
9th - ALICE (Rich Wallace) - 1.289 - American
10th - Gabber (Peter Neuendorffer) - 1.189 - American

Surrey, University of