Jabberwacky is a chatterbot created by managing director of Icogno Ltd Rollo Carpenter. It’s unique before other artificial intelligences in that it grows by itself, constantly learning from the conversations it holds with different users.
Instead of following fixed rules, the system stores all of the conversations and uses contextual patterns to find the most appropriate response in each case. In his interview with The Guardian, Carpenter states:
“I started working with databases and one night something clicked. I saw how to make my machine learn: a feedback loop – today’s conversations building better ones tomorrow. I believed immediately in its potential.”
George and Joan are two characters within Jabberwacky. They are programmed to show emotions, answer questions, tell jokes, play word games and even memorize song lyrics or use slang English. Both were awarded winners of the Loebner Prize (bronze medal), in 2005 and 2006, respectively.
Carpenter expects to pass the Turing test by 2016, once his machine fools the judges into thinking they are speaking to a human. It is worth mentioning that, so far, nobody has ever won the silver or gold prizes.
References:
- Talk time: Rollo Carpenter (October 14, 2004). In guardian.co.uk, interviewed by Hamish Mackintosh. Retrieved March 23, 2009.
- Chatterbox George, a robot that’s fooling everyone (September 3, 2006). In Impact Lab – A Laboratory of the Human Experience. Retrieved March 23, 2009.
- Jabberwacky – About Thoughts (2008). In jabberwacky.com. Retrieved March 25, 2009.
- Rollo Carpenter interview – Loebner 2006 winner (September, 2006). In Ai Dreams by Freddy. Retrieved March 25, 2009.
- Jabberwacky (January 22, 2009). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved March 25, 2009.
- Turing test (March 29, 2009). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved March 30, 2009.
(Could have been a coincidence that I chose a programmer called Rollo among the thousands of people related to NLP. But it’s not. I need some therapy, I know.)
