Bot Contest

If they had just said up front that they would choose the finalists in their own fashion and let us know how they had chosen them, then I'd have accepted that. I dont think the contest being democratic is the imporant thing. Informing us of what's going on is. But they said there would be an event to decide the semifinalists. At this point the best they can do is to simply select the 8 finalists as in past years.

Perhaps I will just send the Agreement over, and get more signatures as they come...

Well, I'd like to continue in the contest just to see if SS made it past the Semi's, but I totally agree with you prof, it's horrible, and I could never ask you to spend a day setting up stuff after that

I'll sign, if what I read is correct: bascially these guys have their heads so much up their asses that they can't run a straight contest, and Hugh Loebner should get someone else to run it?
If that's the jist of it, I'm in
--Matthew Lange & Steve Slacker

My transcript has no indication of visits from judges on that day. Dr. Wallace wrote me back and said that he did not attend. He has no more information than we do.

Oh, count me in too.

Joy Harwood -- God Louise

Well, well. They just wrote me offering to reimburse "some, if not all" of my expenses for the trip. I accept! I thanked them sweetly and said "AI is all about communication, and I think this is a step in the right direction."

I know I should be pissed too, but on the other hand I have enough Prozac built up in my brain to kill a small (animal), so..... whatever. The only thing that really put me off was walking around alone in a strange city trying to find a working pay phone.

tackle hugggggggggggggssssssssssssssssss butterfly
at least they are being courtious enough to reemburse some of your travel costs.

Rexi i posted my transcript for saturday in this forum a few messages back, not sure if it was one of the judges or just an ordinary guest. but oddly enough the only conversations KT had that day was with that guest.

oh in the email I got, I think it's the one you posted, prof, they say that "some of the bots from the PF scored very highly" well WTF? are they going to tell us who they were? Or just leave us guessing? Or do you think they meant all of the bots? Somehow I think they wanted us out of there...

Well other than letting me know that I had entered, I never heard anything after that.

I must say I have no relation with the Loebner organizers this year whatsoever. I didn't attend the semifinals, and I have no more clue about them than you.

Patricia, I'm thinking you had a regular guest. There are certain special characters that should be appended to the lines if it came through the Professor's contest page. I don't know exactly how it would look, but it should stand out pretty easily from a normal guest conversation.

I spent a lot of time yesterday talking to Chris, Robby, going over options, writing email, and at the end of the day, my course of action looked clear, and here it is.
------------------
Dear Loebner Committee,

I have decided to take back my withdrawal. I will continue to participate in the contest and make possible the participation of the other Personality Forge bots. My decision is based largely on the hard work of Robby Garner and the Personality Forge botmasters. Robby brought the contest to Atlanta and came up with the Turing Hub idea, which enabled the Forge bots and other web-based AI to participate. He has been extremely helpful and a good friend. I dont want to see his effort go to waste.

The Forge botmasters are sympathetic to my reasons to withdraw, but they were also very excited about this contest and I dont want to take that away from them.

There are still issues that I feel need to be addressed, and I expect we can work through them in an amicable fashion in the weeks to come. I have heard of your intention to refund Joy her travel expenses, and I thank you for that. It is a generous and noble thing to do.

Sincerely,
Benji Adams
The Personality Forge
----------------

The thought here is that we shouldnt let Neil Bishop ruin it for so many other people. Hugh Loebner responded to my email, saying he regretted the problems and he was going to be forwarding the emails to someone at Cambridge. He said he'd write back in more detail later. I wrote to him again last night, and offered the idea of the agreement, to see if he thinks it would be constructive. I havent heard from him or the Loebner Committee since last night. The ball's in their court now. I still want to push the agreement, and have 8 semifinalists who've signed on.

It appears that Hugh doesnt want to be directly involved with the problems this year, but he doesnt want them to be ignored or hidden either. Here are the people to contact:
• Dwight Harshbarger: Executive Director of the Cambridge Center, and ultimately responsible for the functioning of the contest: harshbarger@behavior.org
• Ms. Stacie Sutton: Media contact at GSU: stacie@gsu.edu
• Professor Thomas Whalen: Responsible for bringing GSU into the contest: whalen@gsu.edu 404-651-4080

Also, the newsgroups "comp.ai" or "comp.ai.nat-lang"

Let's go ahead with the web page showing all the unanswered emails. Please send what you have to me at benji@daystream.com.

Professor, I think your idea about creating a web page documenting how shoddy the contest has been run is a good idea. It will be a good source of information for what not to do for future groups looking to sponsor the Loebner.

Chris