Loebner Prize 2008
The 18th annual prestigious Loebner Prize for Artificial Intelligence will be hosted by the University of Reading on Sunday October 12, 2008.
RULES Version 3 (March 2008)
1. OPENING DATE FOR SUBMISSION OF ENTRIES:
Monday 21 January 2008
2a. LAST POSTMARK DATE FOR SUBMISSION OF ENTRIES:
Friday 23 May 2008
2b. CLOSING DATE
Friday 30 May 2008
3. Who can compete?
This will be an 'OPEN competition'- Turing Test to see which artificial conversational entity (ACE) can pass, AS CLOSE TO TURING's vision of the imitation game as he wrote of in his 1950 paper, given 5 MINUTES of questioning by each interrogator.
3.1 The competition is open to any individual or group, but no individual or group may be associated with more than one entry.
3.2 Entrants must affirm that they have intellectual rights to their entry and that it and its components comply with all artistic licenses.
3.3 Entrants younger than 18 years of age must accompany their submission with a written statement of permission by at least one parent or guardian.
3.4 ACE may pretend to be of either gender.
4. MAILING ADDRESS:
Web-based ACE are invited to enter the contest. ONE URL ONLY will be accepted for each system, which must be emailed to Kevin Warwick or Huma Shah by the deadline at:
If an ACE is not available on-line then a working hard copy of the programme, on CDs, DVDs, portable hard disk or USB flash via shipment medium (a) requiring a receipt signature and (b) having a date /time stamp showing posting by 23:59 of Friday 23 May 2008 , at this address:
Professor Kevin Warwick,
Cybernetics Department,
University of Reading,
Whiteknights,
Reading,
United Kingdom,
RG6 6AH.
Please provide information for hardware requirements with your submission (i.e. minimum specifications).
5. PRELIMINARY TESTING PHASE FOR SUBMITTED/ACCEPTED ENTRIES
The preliminary testing/evaluation phase will take place during June and July, 2008.
5.1 Entries, either web-enabled (web browser access via the Internet), or stand-alone (running from a shell or windows environment), must be working by 23:59 May 30 and must remain operational during the testing phase.
5.2 Systems will be tested and scored by many University of Reading students and others deemed appropriate by the contest management (Hugh Loebner, Kevin Warwick, Huma Shah and Ian Bland).
NO CONTESTANT will be allowed to act as an assessor/judge during this phase.
6. FINALISTS' ANNOUNCEMENT
The finalists will be selected during the preliminary phase and will be announced in August, 2008.
Selected finalists will be invited to submit their programmes on disk(s) - CD, DVD, portable hard disk or USB flash, by Friday 26 September 2008 (see mailing address in point 4 above).
No Internet connection will be allowed during the Finals on Sunday 12 October 2008.
7. LOEBNER 2008 FINALS
The finals, Loebner Prize for Artificial Intelligence will be held Sunday October 12, 2008. The University will provide hardware running either Windows XP or Vista (to be advised to finalists in August) with Internet Explorer 7 browser.
8. ATTENDANCE AT THE FINALS?
It is not necessary for the ACE designer to attend. However, it would be preferable that there be a representative for each finalist at the Loebner 2008 finals but it is not necessary.
9. COMMUNICATIONS PROTOCOL:
For the finals contest management will be using a split-screen (left, right) HTML message-by-message interface. The MATT protocol will be used in the Finals of Loebner 2008 - an introduction to the protocol with FAQs and necessary files can be found at the MATT protocol website.
Please contact huma@loebnerprize.org or matt@1bdi.co.uk if you have any problems..
10. Nature of Finals
The finalists will compete in 5-minutes parallel-paired Turing Tests
There will be no restrictions on the conversations or topics. If two machines tie on points, we may allow a further 5-minute face-off.
Confederates (hidden-humans) and the submitters of Computer Entries must understand that the transcripts of the interactions between the Entities and the Judges will be published. The transcripts will be in the public domain.
GENERAL
1. Members and agents of The University of Reading directly connected to the 2008 Loebner Prize are INELIGIBLE to submit an entry to the contest.
2. The object of the preliminary phase is to filter and find the 'best' six ACE that convince more than half the preliminary phase judges that they are human after five minutes of conversation, our interpretation of the Turing Test.
3. If there are fewer than six ACE submitted for the preliminary phase but more than four then the best four will proceed to the finals. If there are only four, they will proceed to the finals after rigorous five-minutes testing by many judges.
4. There will be at least 4 judges in the finals of the (18th) 2008 Loebner Prize.
5. The object of the finals is a) to find which ACE is best able to mimic a human and deceive a human interrogator that they are the human when compared with a hidden-human during a parallel-paired conversation, and b) award a Loebner Prize bronze medal and a cash prize of $3000.
6. Entries which fail to comply with the Rules, for instance posted and received after the deadline of 30 May 2008 will not be allowed to enter the 2008 Loebner Prize.
7. ACE designers will retain copyright of their systems.
8. Loebner 2008 management retain the right to modify the Rules at its convenience.
9. The Loebner Prize, $3000 and medal, are made possible by the support of Crown Industries, Inc., East Orange, NJ, US. http://gocrown.com
This page maintained by Huma Shah.