The Alexa Prize
Over $3.5 Million to Advance Conversational Artificial Intelligence
December 2017 - November 2018Announcing the 2018 Alexa Prize Finalists
Amazon is excited to announce the finalists competing in the 2018 Alexa Prize. Congratulations to Alquist from the Czech Technical University in Prague, Alana from Heriot-Watt University, and Gunrock from University of California Davis!
Amazon wants to thank all of the Alexa Prize teams for their creativity, passion and contributions to both AI science and delighting Alexa customers.
During the semifinals period, which started on July 2, 2018 and ended on August 15, 2018, Alexa customers interacted with the socialbots by saying “Alexa, let’s chat” to any Alexa-powered device. Competing socialbots were randomly invoked in response to this utterance. At the end of the interaction, customers were prompted to provide a rating from 1 to 5 stars (5 being the highest) on how they felt about speaking with that socialbot. These customer ratings determined two of the teams moving on to the finals - Alquist and Alana. Amazon selected the wildcard finalist Gunrock. To learn more about the detailed evaluation criteria, please Read our announcement.
Congratulations!
2018 Alexa Prize Challenge Finalists
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Alana
Heriot-Watt University
Edinburgh, Scotland Faculty Advisor: Oliver Lemon -
Alquist
Czech Technical University
Prague, Czech Republic Faculty Advisor: Jan Sedivy -
Gunrock
University of California Davis
Davis, CA, USA Faculty Advisor: Zhou Yu
Countdown to the Announcement of the 2018 Alexa Prize Winner!
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Thank you to the other universities for participating!
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EVE
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT, USA Faculty Advisor: David Wingate -
Fantom
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
Stockholm, Sweden Faculty Advisor: Gabriel Skantze -
Iris
Emory University
Atlanta, GA, USA Faculty Advisor: Eugene Agichtein -
SlugBot
University of California Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA, USA Faculty Advisor: Marilyn Walker -
Tartan
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA Faculty Advisor: Alexander Rudnicky
A $500,000 prize will be awarded to the team selected for creating the best socialbot. The second- and third-place teams will receive prizes of $100,000 and $50,000, respectively. Additionally, a $1 million research grant will be awarded to the winning team’s university if their socialbot achieves the grand challenge of conversing coherently and engagingly with humans for 20 minutes with a 4.0 or higher rating.
Key Dates
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February
Competition begins
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May
First customer feedback period
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July-August
Semifinals
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August - October
Final customer feedback period
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November
Competition concludes & winners announced
