When I chatted with George I figured out his calendar was off by a year and a few days–he thought it was September 22, 2005, and that it was ok since he was in England. He may not know what day or year it is, but he had no trouble diagnosing a challenge to his tennis playing plans.
September 25, 2006 10:58am
George, who is 39, single and light-hearted, is looking for friends on the Internet.
He has gifts: the ability to speak in 40 languages and with 2000 people at the same time.
There’s just one quirk: he doesn’t really exist.
George is a piece of software, arguably the best of the speaking “chatbots” or talking robots, and he’s recently received the Loebner prize in Britain, a scientific award recognising the machines best capable of matching the most realistic human dialogues with their own.
Seven years after being invented, George evolved a few months ago into what experts call an avatar, gaining a physical image, a voice and voice recognition software.
One can now have an oral discussion with him over the Internet, “face to face”.
George appears on the website www.jabberwacky.com and takes the form of a thin, bald man with yellow glasses who wears a white turtleneck sweater.
He can smile, laugh, sulk and bang his fist on his virtual table. He can turn on the charm and wax romantic. But he can also turn coarse at times.
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