Chatbot “Tutor Mike” Won Second Place in 2018 Loebner Prize Contest

Mike C. Lee
Sep 9, 2018 · 4 min read

“Tutor Mike”, a chatbot created by Professor Ron Lee (www.rong-chang.com) to help English learners practice English, won the second place in the 2018 Loebner Prize Contest (http://aisb.org.uk/events/loebner-prize). The Loebner Prize is the oldest Turing Test contest, started in 1991 by Hugh Loebner and the Cambridge Centre for Behavioural studies. According to Professor Lee, “Tutor Mike” did so well in the competition this time because he created the Final Patterns script based on his Final Patterns theory. “Tutor Mike is written in AIML created by Dr. Richard Wallace.

If you want to try Tutor Mike, Here is the link: https://www.rong-chang.com/tutor_mike.htm

September 6, 2018

AN INTERVIEW WITH RON LEE, CREATOR OF “TUTOR”

What are the typical questions judges ask to try and catch you out?

- Sometimes they ask the same question again and again to see if they get the same response. A bot tends to give the same answer.

Has anyone ever managed to successfully beat the judges into thinking a bot was a human? If not, how is it judged? When do you think a bot will manage to beat the judges into making them think it’s a human?

- I don’t think so. I remember once a human confederate pretending to be a bot, which confused the judge. I don’t know how it is judged. I haven’t seen any standards for the judges to use. We have to assume the judge represents common people with common sense. I don’t see a time in the near future when a bot will make the judge really think that it’s a human.

How do you think the Loebner prize could be improved?

- The reliability of the so-called “Turing test” has long been questioned. I think we should not take Alan Turing’s words literally. There needs to be some well-thought standards and qualifications to be used in choosing judges. I’d rather see a conventional contest to see which language bot is best in answering questions. The qualification test run in June actually can be an independent test itself.

I believe computers aren’t allowed to connect to the internet during the compeititon. Does not being able to connect to the internet make it much harder?

- I don’t believe so, though it does make it harder to enter. The person who wants to enter has to make his bot work with the program that runs the competition, which might be a good thing because it limits the competition to serious competitors.

What preparation are you doing for Saturday?

- I checked my conversation logs to see recent conversations my bot has had with users and correct some errors.

How did you end up doing this and is this your full time job now?

- I am an English language teaching professional. I studied at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, where I received my M.A. in English as a Second Language, and Ph.D. in Educational Technology. It has been a goal in my life to use computers to help students learn English. In 2004, I discovered Pandorabots, an authoring tool created by Dr. Richard Wallace. I used that tool and created my own chatbot. I called it “Tutor” because I really wanted to create an electronic tutor to replace human tutors in English practice. Right now, I’m teaching part-time, so I have more time in developing “Tutor” and creating my English learning websites https://www.rong-chang.com/ and https://www.eslfast.com/. I have very successuful websites. The daily hits are now over half a million. If you want to learn more about me, here is my online resume: https://www.rong-chang.com/rcli.htm

How does Tutor learn? How has Tutor evolved over time?

- “Tutor” has no self learning ability yet. I have to teach him. Since 2006, I have been spending one or two hours daily on it. “Tutor” (https://www.rong-chang.com/tutor_mike.htm) is free on the Web and available for any English learners who want to practice and improve English. It has over 20,000 weekly access. I study the conversation logs and improve Tutor’s responses constantly. Based on my study, and as an English language teaching professional, I have come up with a set of English language patterns based on the Final Pattern Theory (the term coined by myself), I have improved Tutor’s NLU (Natuaral Language Understanding), which may explain why it outperformed all other chatbots in the competition.

How do you think Tutor compares to alexa and siri?

- Their goals are different. Amazon Alexa and Siri are mainly used for finding information and doing things. I once tested SIRI with the 20 questions used in Loebner contest, SIRI scored lower than Tutor.

If people decide to have personal conversations with Tutor, is what they say (their data) safe?

- All the data are stored on Pandorabots server. The company is responsible for data safety.

What is the assigned personality of Tutor

- “Tutor” is an English Tutor, a young American male, unmarried, but has a girlfriend. He is knowedgeable in grammar, history, geography. As a teacher, he can correct students’ grammatical errors.

What are the practical applications for Tutor? What future practical applications does it have? e.g. combating loneliness, suicidal thoughts, bullying, learning difficulties, helping police track pedophiles?

“Tutor” will focus on English Tutoring. I will let other chatbots do the things you mentioned.

Does Tutor show the dangers of AI? Will bots soon be able to impersonate people? What should we be aware of or how should we program AI to be ethical?

- I don’t think so. We worry too much, too early. I believe human beings are smart enough to have things they created under control. If we want it to be ethical, it will be ethical.