We are pleased to announce the launch of our Translator Bot in Malaysia with our partner Dream Chorus

Call for papers: Adaptation and Personalization in E-B/Learning using Pedagogic Conversational Agents

Pedagogic Conversational Agents (PCAs) can be defined as virtual characters, which can teach or be taught by students in a domain, and even to serve as learner companions to void the so-called isolation problem of computer-based education. PCAs can be animated, and may consist only of a face, or have a full body (embodied conversational agents). Given that the educational application keeps a learner model, the PCA could use this to adapt the information presented to the user. It is therefore expected that the interaction will not only be more natural, but also more efficient, because it will be focused on the needs and preferences of each student.

Call for papers: International Workshop on Adaptation and Personalization in E-B/Learning using Pedagogic Conversational Agents, June 21th, 2010, Hawaii, USA.

General

* Motivation, benefits, and issues of the use of Pedagogic Conversational Agents in EB/Learning
* Techniques and Methods
* Results and Metrics
* Social and Educational Issues

Pedagogic Conversational Agents

* Definition and taxonomy of Pedagogic Conversational Agents
o Learner Companions
o Teachable Agents
o Virtual Tutors
o Question-Answering tutors
o Other
* Educational systems using Pedagogic Conversational Agents
* Case Studies: impact of the use of the Pedagogic Conversational Agents

Adaptation using Conversational Agents in E-B/Learning

* Generated Open Student Models
* Negotiated Student Model with the Pedagogic Conversational Agent
* User Studies and Experiences
* Evaluation

http://www.chatbots.org/conversational/agent/call_for_papers_pedagogic_conversational_agents/

Chatbots 3.0 Conference – Preliminary Announcement

Who: Botmasters, bot businesses, bot enthusiasts, bot hobbyists, scientists, students, and the press are invited.

What: Chatbots 3.0 Conference

When: Saturday, March 27, 2010 9am-6pm

Where: Suite 3200 (32nd Floor) Liberty Place, 50 S. 16th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102, USA

Why:  Bring together botmasters for a meeting IRL to share ideas and garner some publicity.  The conference is not limited to AIML, but takes a “big tent” approach to invite people working on all bot technologies and companies.  Similar meetings we’ve hosted in San Francisco in 2003 and Guildford, UK in 2005 proved to be a great success.

How much: Free admission.

There is a preliminary conference site up at
http://chatbots3.eventbrite.com/

There are one or two slots open for prospective speakers (Erwin Van Lun is one of the speakers).  Please contact me if you are interested in giving a 30 minute presentation at Chatbots 3.0

Contact:
Dr. Richard Wallace

+1-609-379-2552
Skype: dr.wallace
drwallace@alicebot.org

Why Chatbots 3.0?

Artificial intelligence chat bots, also known as chatterbots or conversational agents, developed in a series of three stages over the past 60 years.

The First Wave

Alan Turing conceived of the talking computer in his 1950 paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence. For his famous test, Turing imagined an artificial intelligence that communicates in natural language through a text based medium, such as a teletype.

In 1966 MIT Professor Joseph Weizenbaum became the first botmaster, or chat bot author, when he created the famous ELIZA prorgam. ELIZA was the first A.I. to apply the concept of stimulus-response pattern recognition to natural language understanding. ELIZA was also the first bot to employ conversational logging as a means for the botmaster to review and refine the bot.

Dr. Hugh Loebner began sponsoring the first real-world Turing Test in 1991. To the surpise of many, the winner of the first contest was based on the ELIZA psychiatrist program.

In 1994, Michael Mauldin created a bot named Julia in an online MUD environment. He coined the term “chatterbot” to describe his conversational programs.

The Second Wave

The advent of the world web marked the beginning of widespread access to chatterbots. By exposing their bots on the web, botmasters collected a huge amount of conversational log data to help them improve the quality of the bots. Better and faster computers led to the development of large knowledge bases for bots.

Dr. Richard Wallace launched the free software ALICE project in 1995. ALICE led to the development of the open AIML standard for creating chat bots.  An alphabet soup of AIML interpreters and servers appeared.

The first commercial chat bot companies, Neuromedia and Virtual Personalities, were launched in the heady early days of the dot-com boom.

In the late 90’s, two prominent web sites emerged to provide to index and promote chat bot projects and companies. These were the Simon Laven page, and Marcus Zillman’s Botspot.com.

The Third Wave

Today chatterbots have been adapted to nearly every ecological niche on the internet. Bots appear on web pages, in instant messaging, and respond to email and forum posts. They can be found in Second Life, in online games, and in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

New technologies for automated learning have appeared which vastly reduce the time and effort needed to create convincing bots. At the same time, a series of new commercial opportunities have opened for bots and their botmasters.

We’re experiencing the beginning of a new era. The time has come to gather together the leading experts in chat bot technology to share our ideas and discoveries.

Look forward to meet you @Chatbots 3.0!

Erwin Van Lun

CEO, founder Chatbots.org

Advancing the Chatbot Industry WorldWide

Amsterdam, The Netherlands:

+31 621 567 657 (GMT + 1, 24h/day)

Sydney, Australia:

+61 2 8007 4744 (GMT + 10, 24h/day)

W www.chatbots.org

E erwin.van.lun@chatbots.org

Skype: erwinvanlun

Twitter: chatbots

Personal info about futurist and keynote speaker Erwin Van Lun on

www.erwinvanlun.com