Hugh Loebner

Hugh Loebner (born March 26 1942) is an American inventor, holding five United States Patents, and an outspoken social activist for the decriminalization of prostitution. He is also notable as the sponsor of the Loebner prize, an embodiment of the Turing test.

Loebner established the Loebner prize in 1990. He pledged to give $100,000 and a solid gold medal to the first programmer able to write a program whose communicative behavior can fool humans into thinking that the program is human. The competition is repeated annually. It was first administered by the Cambridge Center of Behavioral Studies in Massachusetts, then by Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia and Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. It was then hosted by the Science Museum, London. In 2004 and 2005 it was held in Loebner's apartment in New York City.

In 2006 the contest was organised by Tim Child (CEO of Televirtual) and Huma Shah. It was held in the VR theatre, Torrington Place campus of University College London. The gold-prize, for most human-like machine, was awarded to 'Joan' based on Jabberwacky, both created by Rollo Carpenter. The judges included the University of Reading's cybernetics professor, Kevin Warwick, professor of artificial intelligence, John Barnden (specialist in metaphor research at the University of Birmingham), barrister, Victoria Butler-Cole and journalist, Graham Duncan-Rowe. His experience of the event can be found in an article in Technology Review. [ [http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17518&ch=in How To Be Human] ] [ [http://loebner.net/Prizef/2006_Contest/loebner-prize-2006.html Loebner prize 2006] ]

The 2007 Loebner prize took place in New York City on Sunday 21 October. Robert Medeksza, creator of Ultra Hal, won the Loebner contest for the first time. Other contestants included Noah Duncan and Rollo Carpenter. The judges were: Professor Russ Abbott, Professor Hartyr Field, Assistant Professor Clayton Curtis and Scott Hutchins. [ [http://loebner.net/Prizef/2007_Contest/loebner-prize-2007.html 17th Annual Loebner Prize for Artificial Intelligence] ]

Within the field of artificial intelligence, the Loebner Prize is somewhat controversial; the most prominent critic, Marvin Minsky, has called it a publicity stunt that does not help the field along.

Loebner has been quite open about his visits to prostitutes. In 1994, after a campaign by officials in New York City to arrest customers of prostitutes, he wrote an opposing letter to "The New York Times", and it was published. In 1996 he authored a "Magna Carta for Sex Work" or "Manifesto of Sexual Freedom" [ [http://loebner.net/freedom/magna-carta.html Magna Carta for Sex Work] ] , in which he denounced the criminalization of consensual sexual acts, and asked all like minded people to join a protest on 6/9/96 (a play on the 69 sex position). In interviews he has said that he believes to be too old for the young attractive women he is interested in; they would not have sex with him were it not for the money. He has compared the oppression of prostitutes and their customers to the oppression that Alan Turing faced because of his homosexual behavior.

Loebner also likes to point out that, unlike the solid gold medal for the Loebner prize, the gold medals of the Olympic Games are not solid gold, but are made of silver covered with a thin layer of gold.

Loebner holds a Ph.D. in demography from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is divorced, lives in New York City and owns Crown Industries, a manufacturer of crowd control stanchion and brass fittings, which is the major sponsor of the Loebner prize in the US.

References

External links

* [http://www.loebner.net Loebner's home page]
* [http://www.loebner.net/Prizef/loebner-prize.html Loebner Prize]
* [http://gocrown.com Crown Industries sponsor of the Loebner Prize]