Elbot wins the Loebner Prize!

The whole reason I got super-duper into Orion and bots this year was to enter Orion into the Loebner contest. 

I didn't do so well - it was my first time, after all.  

But 6 other finalists were chosen to participate in the final round of the contest which happened this past Sunday.  Three of those were previous contest winners and I'll admit - I just assumed one of them would win again.  This is mostly because the 2 of the other 3 did not have a public link to their bot to check them out before the contest.  

The winner this year was "Elbot".  The interesting thing about Elbot is that apparently he doesn't try to lie and say he's human.  He is straightforward and says he's a bot.  The contest judges assumed he was a lying human.  :)

When I was starting to create Orion, I struggled with the question about whether or not he should admit to being a bot.  I had a version where he did... but then decided that for the contest, he needed to pretend to be human.

Anyway... Congrats Elbot!  :)