See article history for more details of some earlier contests. A very incomplete listing of a few of the contests:
2003 In 2003, the contest was organised by Professor
Richard H. R. Harper and Dr. Lynne Hamill from the Digital World Research Centre at the
University of Surrey. Although no bot passed the Turing test, the winner was Jabberwock, created by
Juergen Pirner. Second was Elbot (Fred Roberts,
Artificial Solutions). Third was
Jabberwacky, (
Rollo Carpenter).
2006 In 2006, the contest was organised by
Tim Child (CEO of Televirtual) and Huma Shah. On August 30, the four finalists were announced: • Rollo Carpenter • Richard Churchill and Marie-Claire Jenkins • Noah Duncan • Robert Medeksza The contest was held on 17 September in the VR theatre, Torrington Place campus of
University College London. The judges included the University of Reading's
cybernetics professor,
Kevin Warwick, a professor of artificial intelligence, John Barnden (specialist in metaphor research at the
University of Birmingham), a barrister, Victoria Butler-Cole and a journalist, Graham Duncan-Rowe. The latter's experience of the event can be found in an article in
Technology Review. The winner was 'Joan', based on Jabberwacky, both created by Rollo Carpenter.
2007 The 2007 competition was held on October 21 in New York City. The judges were:
computer science professor Russ Abbott, philosophy professor
Hartry Field, psychology assistant professor Clayton Curtis and English lecturer
Scott Hutchins. No bot passed the Turing test, but the judges ranked the three contestants as follows: • 1st: Robert Medeksza, creator of Ultra Hal • 2nd: Noah Duncan, a private entry, creator of Cletus • 3rd: Rollo Carpenter from Icogno, creator of Jabberwacky The winner received $2,250 and the annual medal. The runners-up received $250 each.
2008 The 2008 competition was organised by professor Kevin Warwick, coordinated by Huma Shah and held on October 12 at the University of Reading,
UK. After testing by over one hundred judges during the preliminary phase, in June and July 2008, six finalists were selected from thirteen original entrant artificial conversational entities (ACEs). Five of those invited competed in the finals: • Brother Jerome, Peter Cole and Benji Adams •
Elbot, Fred Roberts /
Artificial Solutions •
Eugene Goostman, Vladimir Veselov, Eugene Demchenko and Sergey Ulasen • Jabberwacky, Rollo Carpenter • Ultra Hal, Robert Medeksza In the finals, each of the judges was given five minutes to conduct simultaneous, split-screen conversations with two hidden entities. Elbot of Artificial Solutions won the 2008 Loebner Prize bronze award, for
most human-like artificial conversational entity, through fooling three of the twelve judges who interrogated it (in the human-parallel comparisons) into believing it was human. This is coming very close to the 30% traditionally required to consider that a program has actually passed the Turing test. Eugene Goostman and Ultra Hal both deceived one judge each that it was the human. Will Pavia, a journalist for
The Times, has written about his experience; a Loebner finals' judge, he was deceived by Elbot and Eugene. Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah have reported on the parallel-paired Turing tests.
2009 The 2009 Loebner Prize Competition was held September 6, 2009, at the
Brighton Centre,
Brighton UK in conjunction with the Interspeech 2009 conference. The prize amount for 2009 was $3,000. Entrants were
David Levy, Rollo Carpenter, and Mohan Embar, who finished in that order. The writer
Brian Christian participated in the 2009 Loebner Prize Competition as a human confederate, and described his experiences at the competition in his book
The Most Human Human.
2010 The 2010 Loebner Prize Competition was held on October 23 at
California State University, Los Angeles. The 2010 competition was the 20th running of the contest. The winner was
Bruce Wilcox with Suzette.
2011 The 2011 Loebner Prize Competition was held on October 19 at the
University of Exeter,
Devon, United Kingdom. The prize amount for 2011 was $4,000. The four finalists and their chatterbots were
Bruce Wilcox (Rosette), Adeena Mignogna (Zoe), Mohan Embar (Chip Vivant) and Ron Lee (Tutor), who finished in that order. That year there was an addition of a panel of junior judges, namely Georgia-Mae Lindfield, William Dunne, Sam Keat and Kirill Jerdev. The results of the junior contest were markedly different from the main contest, with chatterbots Tutor and Zoe tying for first place and Chip Vivant and Rosette coming in third and fourth place, respectively.
2012 The 2012 Loebner Prize Competition was held on the 15th of May in
Bletchley Park in
Bletchley,
Buckinghamshire, England, in honor of the
Alan Turing centenary celebrations. The prize amount for 2012 was $5,000. The local arrangements organizer was David Levy, who won the Loebner Prize in 1997 and 2009. The four finalists and their chatterbots were Mohan Embar (Chip Vivant), Bruce Wilcox (Angela), Daniel Burke (Adam), M. Allan (Linguo), who finished in that order. That year, a team from the University of Exeter's computer science department (Ed Keedwell, Max Dupenois and Kent McClymont) conducted the first-ever live webcast of the conversations.
2013 The 2013 Loebner Prize Competition was held, for the only time on the Island of
Ireland, on September 14 at the
Ulster University,
Magee College,
Derry,
Northern Ireland, UK. The four finalists and their chatbots were Steve Worswick (Mitsuku), Dr. Ron C. Lee (Tutor), Bruce Wilcox (Rose) and Brian Rigsby (Izar), who finished in that order. The judges were Professor
Roger Schank (Socratic Arts), Professor
Noel Sharkey (
Sheffield University), Professor Minhua (Eunice) Ma (
Huddersfield University, then
University of Glasgow) and Professor Mike McTear (
Ulster University). For the 2013 Junior Loebner Prize Competition the chatbots Mitsuku and Tutor tied for first place with Rose and Izar in 3rd and 4th place respectively.
2014 The 2014 Loebner Prize Competition was held at Bletchley Park, England, on Saturday 15 November 2014. The event was filmed live by Sky News. The guest judge was television presenter and broadcaster James May. After 2 hours of judging, 'Rose' by Bruce Wilcox was declared the winner. Bruce will receive a cheque for $4000 and a bronze medal. The ranks were as follows: Rose – Rank 1 ($4000 & Bronze Medal); Izar – Rank 2.25 ($1500); Uberbot – Rank 3.25 ($1000); and Mitsuku – Rank 3.5 ($500). The Judges were Dr Ian Hocking, Writer & Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Christ Church College, Canterbury; Dr Ghita Kouadri-Mostefaoui, Lecturer in Computer Science and Technology, University of Bedfordshire; Mr James May, Television Presenter and Broadcaster; and Dr Paul Sant, Dean of UCMK, University of Bedfordshire.
2015 The 2015 Loebner Prize Competition was again won by 'Rose' by Bruce Wilcox. The judges were Jacob Aaron, Physical sciences reporter for New Scientist; Rory Cellan-Jones, Technology correspondent for the BBC; Brett Marty, Film Director and Photographer; Ariadne Tampion, Writer.
2016 The 2016 Loebner Prize was held at Bletchley Park on 17 September 2016. After 2 hours of judging the final results were announced. The ranks were as follows: • 1st place:
Mitsuku A selected jury of judges also examined and voted for the ones they liked best. The ranks were as follows: Most humanlike chatbot: • 1st place:
Mitsuku – 24 points • 2nd place: Uberbot – 6 points • 3rd place: Anna – 5 points Best overall chatbot • 1st place:
Mitsuku – 19 points • 2nd place: Uberbot – 5 points • 3rd place: Arckon – 4 points ==Winners==