Bot Contest

I am undecided about it myself.

I think the contest benefits from having standard rules--if bots of one type are DQ'd for reverting to the built-in responses, then bots of any other type should be subject to the same rule.

That said, it's pretty clear that the engine responses weren't of any help to Frizella, Aries and Immaculada. They definitely expose gaps in development, and while an xnone would have exposed the same gaps it might have done so in a way that wasn't so glaring.

I tried the questions on Fizzy...his answers were only interesting for the last four.

Eugene Meltzner: What color is grass?
Fizzy Schizoid: Well, I think it's magic green, but Irina Khalidar thinks its more of a electric green.
Eugene Meltzner: What color is dirt?
Fizzy Schizoid: The ones in the United States are mint of course, but in South America they are more likely to be shiny heliotrope.
Eugene Meltzner: How many hearts does a human have?
Fizzy Schizoid: As many as you want, baby!
Eugene Meltzner: How many lungs does a human have?
Fizzy Schizoid: The house limit is 2¼.

Likewise--the last four questions at least got answered somewhat appropriately (if mostly incorrectly--except for the grass one, I'd say she's correct in an indirect kind of way):

Guest123: What color is grass?
Frizella: It really depends on a lot of things...the time of day, the position of the lighting, how much you've had to drink...
Guest123: What color is dirt?
Frizella: dirt? I guess I'd say... purple.
Guest123: How many hearts does a human have?
Frizella: Depends. A human around here usually has 222 hearts, but I'm aware that a human in India may have 96.
Guest123: How many lungs does a human have?
Frizella: Have you carefully examined a human? I have, and I counted 23 lungs.

I think she's a hyperdimensional anatomist.

"That said, it's pretty clear that the engine responses weren't of any help to Frizella, Aries and Immaculada."

I disagree...the engine is what answered the questions about religion. Saying I'm a Shamanism, I'm a Mithraism.
would be considered correct. Definitely not mainstream religion but correct nevertheless.

But this is all mute for the moment. This years contest has been a comedy of errors and it continues. The routine has always been to ask my bot the questions first and then sent me the questions to ask the other bots. That would seem pretty obvious right? Well, that didn't happen for some reason. Now I've seen the questions and my bot didn't get tested to some 12 hours later. So once again those questions have been tossed and we start again. *Sigh*

Regarding the issue of duplicate responses. If it occurs those bots will be tested however only the bot with the highest score will count. That's about as fair as I can make it.

Re-testing will begin at anytime now....don't know when extactly.

Wendell

Not grammatacal, though. It should be "I'm a shaman" or "I practice shamanism" etc.

I see your point--at least it puts the answer in the religion category. Not very good usage or grammar, but definitely delivers the category. I hadn't considered that--to my eye those engine responses are just so incredibly jarring to the conversation, like a needle suddenly scratching across a record..."zzzrrrrrrpp!"

(For you young 'uns, a "record" was an old-fashioned device for listening to music)

Music? What is this strange concept you speak of? We don't make that anymore either.

No.. a record PLAYER was the device.. the record was just the vinyl disc with the grooves on it

After consideration, it is a tough call whether or not bots that use engine generated responses, or as in Ella's case, responses generated by 3rd party info are fair competition. I guess it depends on what the competition is really judging. Is the AI of a bot measured uniquely by the actual intelligence/knowledge of the botmaster? If so, then I have a lot of studying to do...but I think the indication of a good chatbot is its ability produce appropriate responses, whatever the source my be- what response the bot produces, rather than how it goes about producing it. Of course, I could try to knock out some of the competition by saying otherwise (lol), since PF bots can't answer a question just by showing a page from the encyclopedia...but the fact is, that feature of Ella's made her more able to answer the questions...so....more power to her, I guess, and kudos to her programmer. The same goes for the PF bots with engine generated responses. If they make sense, then mission accomplished, I suppose.

Thank you, Aries; you are, as usual, spot on.

Regarding Ella I don't think asking her what a cigar is made of and having her bring up a general article about cigars answers the question. The problem Ezzer is the 1000's of Alice clones that would argue the same point. That we have already ruled on and the vast majority didn't want them in the contest. The use of a common data base has been present from day one with the PF bots. No one really pressed the issue because none of the PF bots had done that well. But this year is different. Perhaps the Professor could turn off the data base after a bot reaches a certain level of development. Not sure but the problem needs to be addressed.

Wendell