WRT: Writer Response Theory

News from the Alicebot listserv: To celebrate ten years of Alicebot.org a colloquium is being held to chat about chatbots. This is the first chatbot dedicated event I’ve seen. The COLLOQUIUM ON CONVERSATIONAL SYSTEMS is being held at the Digital World Research Centre, University of Surrey, Guildford, UK, 2-6pm on 25 November 2005.

An informal afternoon meeting will be held at
which invited speakers will give short presentations on
aspects of conversational systems and participants will
demonstrate their developed and experimental programs.

Conversational systems are intelligent computer
interfaces that allow users to interact in plain English,
either text or spoken. They represent an advance in
human-computer interaction and have wide-ranging potential
applications.

Speakers include Loebner Prize winners and Dr Hugh Loebner himself.

Full details and CFP at the Alice site. I hope those who regard ’simple reflex’ programs as a waste of time attend and find out some really helpful advances for all agents and chat-based storytelling…