A quick question to all.

In one of the matches, I had this response from the two bots.

Can you tell me your age please?

Bot1: I was born on Sun May 24 2009 00:00:00 GMT+0100 (GMT Daylight Time). I am pretty capable for a 3 year old.

Bot2: I’m not sure. I crash landed on earth 11 years ago destroying much of my memory. Wendell is attempting to retrieve some of it now.

Bear in mind that the point goes to the bot that answered better and not necessarily the correct answer, who would you have given the point to? Bot1, Bot2, neither or both?

Bot1 answered the question about how old it was (usual interpretation of when it was created/born).
Bot2 didnt. only said it didnt remember.

Bot1 gets the point

Elaborating that a bit…

bot 1 clearly UNDERSTOOD the question and gave an appropriate answer. We “assume” its correct, but it doesn’t really matter.

bot 2 gave an answer that it could apply to almost any question, without showing it even understood the question.  It was a fancy way of saying “I don’t know.” but doesn’t deserve credit for that.

I also think it’s a bit of a tricky reply. But yes, bot 1’s answer is more accurate.  In the second reply, there is nothing that indicates it is replying to an ‘how old are you’  question.
If it was part of the back-story, maybe something like ‘my exact age is unknown, but I am at least 7 years old’. I think something like that would have been better.

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.
http://www.chatbotbattles.com

Congratulations to all who made the final cut, and most of all, congratulations to Steve Worswick.  Chatbot Battles was a knock-out as well.

I’ve written a Post-Match Analysis on alicebot.org:

http://alicebot.blogspot.com/2012/08/chatbot-battles-post-match-analysis.html

Nice write-up Richard.