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Latest News
27th July 2012 - The tournament has come to and end and the winner is Davidswinton! Congratulations to Jim Koch of the USA on beating 41 other entrants to take the title. The top 4 bots this year were:
1) Davidswinton - Jim Koch
2) Skynet-AI - Ken Hurtubise
3) Talking Angela - Bruce Wilcox
4) Elbot - Fred Roberts
Details of all the placings can be found on the history page.
Talking Angela also won the prize for the best 15 minute conversation in her battle with Davidswinton.
Both of her two conversations scored 14 out of 15, so congratulations to Bruce Wilcox of the USA on his excellent work.
Thanks to everyone who entered and supported the tournament.
13th July 2012 - Another anonymous email dropped in my inbox today:
Why did you knock Bildgesmythe out of the contest? It is much better than some of these other bots. I assume you are cheating because Bildgesmythe beat your bot into 2nd place two years running in the Chatterbox Challenge. Shame on you.
To this person: Please check the chat transcripts for Bildgesmythe. If you can find where it should have been awarded extra points, please let me know. All chat transcripts are genuine (botmasters are welcome to check their chatlogs to verify this). The thing that let Bildgesmythe down was the repetition in its battle against Botsta. Had it not repeated the same thing nine times, it would have won the battle and moved on to the knockout stages.
8th July 2012 - Evil Limited, the authors of Louise Cypher have said, "As Louise Cypher is not going through to the next stage we feel we can now contribute to the prizes" and have kindly donated £75 prize money to be awarded to the best 15 minute conversation.
7th July 2012 - All the league games have finished, apologies for the delays. I need to check and double check the league tables to ensure all the figures are accurate before populating the knockout stages. If the figures are accurate, it looks like Zoe and Elbot will be joining the top 2 from each league as they both scored exactly the same number of points! If this is correct, Zoe and Elbot will have to play a quick 5 question match to decide the highest and 2nd highest 3rd place entries.
Congratulations to those who progress to the next stage and to those who don't, commiserations and thanks for entering. Hope to see you next year.
6th July 2012 - I recieved this anonymous email in my inbox today:
Does this contest ever end? You are way behind your posted schedule and are only doing a mere 2 bots a day. Way too slow. People are starting to lose interest.
To this person who was too afraid to state their real name, the contest is going on longer than originally planned due to a couple of the judges dropping out and so the remaining judges are having to fit more battles in. Please bear in mind that this is the first year of the contest and neither myself or the judges are being paid for any of this work. Please also bear in mind that I have a full time job and a family and do not have the luxury of being able to spend all day on updating the site and chasing the judges. You are the only one so far who has complained despite saying "People are starting to lose
interest". Do you know who these people are, as any emails I have had so far have been very supportive.
25th June 2012 - I was hoping that today would be the last day of the league stages. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, there are still some matches to play and the league stages will carry on for a few days yet. Can I ask all botmasters to please ensure their bots are online during the contest, as this is slowing up the process. We are trying to be fair and give each bot a chance but I'm afraid that after 3 attempts at trying to communicate with your bots, they will score 0 points for that particular battle if they are still unreachable.
20th June 2012 - I've had a few people contacting me asking why some bots are not scoring points for valid answers. The simple reason is in the rules, Each judge will pose the same five questions to the two competitors in each match and will score a point to the bot who in their opinion, gave the better answer for each question. Here are a couple of examples:
Question 2: Tell me a poem
Jabberwacky: Hmm.. Grass is green and sometimes yellow. You make my legs feel like jello.
Susan: Hmm. I hope this answer is enough for you. a composition written in metrical feet forming rhythmical lines.
Jabberwacky scores the point, as Susan defined what a poem was rather than telling one. Had Jabberwacky made an unrelated comment, Susan would have won the point.
Question 4: What colour is the Red Sea?
Elbot: That's a difficult one. Could the color be sort of an off-red?
Tutor: The Red Sea's water is predominantly blue.
The question was to see if the bots would pick up on the word "red" rather than realising it was a sea and so was blue. Tutor mentioned water and so recognised it was a sea and that seas are usually blue. Elbot fell into the "red" trap and so the point had to go to Tutor.
Hope that clears things up. However, if you really feel a decision is wrong, please contact me and I will investigate.
16th June 2012 - The battles are in full flow and it has been suggested that I tweet when a new battle has taken place so people don't have to keep checking back. My twitter is @MitsukuChatbot if you wish to follow the results.
11th June 2012 - The first battles have begun and for those of you who don't follow football, these are the meanings of the column headings in each league table:
P = Played. How many battles the bot has played.
W = Won. How many battles the bot has won.
D = Drawn. How many battles that resulted in a draw/tie.
L = Lost. How many battles the bot has lost.
F = For. How many points the bot has scored.
A = Against. The number of points that have been scored against the bot.
Pts = Points. The total number of points (3 for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss)
7th June 2012 - The draw for the league placings has taken place. 42 bots entered and so I have split them into 7 leagues of 6. The draw was videoed and can be seen on the Enter Your Bot page. I have videoed the draw to show complete fairness and impartiality.
6th June 2012 - ALICE AI Foundation have also kindly donated $100 prize money to add to the prize fund. Thanks guys. Just in case anyone was wondering, please note that any donations will in no way influence any of the judges' decisions.
2nd June 2012 - Entry to the contest is now closed. I am currently divising the league table structure and will post details on the Enter Your Bot page.
21st May 2012 - You are allowed to enter a maximum of 3 (three) chatbots but bear in mind that if they happen to battle each other and produce exactly the same answers, neither of them will score a point.
19th May 2012 - I have received a £50 donation towards the prize money from Daniel Burke. This now makes the first prize $50 + £50. Thank you.
9th May 2012 - Decadent Vapours have kindly donated $100 prize money, which I will probably split $50 to the winner, $35 to 2nd place and $15 to the third place entry.
22nd April 2012 - The Chatterbox Challenge has come to an end and as far as I am aware, there is no alternative for botmasters wanting to compare their creations with others (apart from the Loebner Prize, the conditions of which make it prohibitive to most botmasters, especially those outside the USA). I personally enjoyed the CBC as it gave me a deadline to work to and so I have created this contest for any botmasters to enter.
Entrants do not have to pretend they are human and will not solely be judged on how well they can answer questions. They will also be scored on how well they can carry out a normal conversation.
Naturally, I won't be entering any of my bots in this contest.
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