2026-09-19T11:49:27Zhttps://dspace.mit.edu/server/oai/requestoai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/1237872025-10-27T18:00:45Zcom_1721.1_7582com_1721.1_7581col_1721.1_131023
Thomas Levinson.
Turner, Madeleine(Madeleine Renee)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Comparative Media Studies.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Graduate Program in Science Writing.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing
2020-02-10T22:51:46Z
2020-02-10T22:51:46Z
2019
2019
https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123787
1139316981
Thesis: S.M. in Science Writing, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing, 2019
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Page 21 blank.
Includes bibliographical references.
Gunrock is a chatbot designed in the likeness of an average 29-year-old woman living in Seattle. Fourteen students from the University of California, Davis, spent spring and summer of 2018 designing and testing the bot. At the end of summer, Gunrock placed first in the 2018 Amazon Alexa Prize, a competition that challenges students to build the best "socialbot," a computer program that talks out loud and engages in "fun, high-quality conversations on popular societal topics." Although Gunrock is rudimentary compared to the conversational ability of a real person, she is also cutting-edge and a predecessor of more advanced systems. Gunrock pulls information from many sources, including Reddit and Twitter comments. As chatbots like Gunrock become more prevalent, their designers must make important decision to determine what chatbots say, which in turn has influence on the user.
by Madeleine Turner.
S.M. in Science Writing
S.M.inScienceWriting Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Comparative Media Studies/Writing
21 pages ;
eng
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.
http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582
Comparative Media Studies.
Graduate Program in Science Writing.
Future talk : the race to build a bot that gabs like a human
Race to build a bot that gabs like a human
Thesis
application/pdf
2020-02-10T22:51:46Z
Publication
Master
CMSW
unknown
unknown
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<Abstract>Gunrock is a chatbot designed in the likeness of an average 29-year-old woman living in Seattle. Fourteen students from the University of California, Davis, spent spring and summer of 2018 designing and testing the bot. At the end of summer, Gunrock placed first in the 2018 Amazon Alexa Prize, a competition that challenges students to build the best "socialbot," a computer program that talks out loud and engages in "fun, high-quality conversations on popular societal topics." Although Gunrock is rudimentary compared to the conversational ability of a real person, she is also cutting-edge and a predecessor of more advanced systems. Gunrock pulls information from many sources, including Reddit and Twitter comments. As chatbots like Gunrock become more prevalent, their designers must make important decision to determine what chatbots say, which in turn has influence on the user.</Abstract>
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