The animosity expressed by luminaries like Dennett and Minsky only makes things harder for the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. How is it supposed to line up prestigious sponsors when its patron insists on getting in mud fights with widely respected scientists? Which, by the way, speaking of the Cambridge Center, brings up more questions. Who are those guys? And how the heck did they get caught up in all this?

I asked Loebner, and this was his answer: "The purpose of the CCBS is to apply the techniques of behaviorism and behavior modification (operant conditioning -- Skinner box etc.) to human problems, thereby ameliorating them. I came to this understanding after Robert [Epstein] asked me to let the CCBS run the contest. At the time he asked, I really couldn't understand the reason for the CCBS's existence and thought that the Loebner Prize would provide a raison d'être."

In another e-mail to me, Loebner said that he had personally kept the center afloat during some rough patches. So, according to Loebner, the Cambridge Center and the Loebner contest were simply each other's fig leaf. I decided to get the center's side of the story.

It took a bit of persistence on my part, but eventually Dwight Harshbarger, the center's executive director, agreed to take my call. He is a soft-spoken, courteous man with a slow Southern way of speaking, and he took his time formulating answers to my questions before responding. In other words he is the very antithesis of Hugh Loebner.

It was clear that the Loebner Prize was not a comfortable topic for him. He acknowledged that the 2002 contest had not gone well, and that the center was actively looking for a host for the 2003 competition. Discussions were at a delicate point with two potential sponsors, he told me. He did not want to say anything to a reporter that might disrupt them. After all, the center has a long history of having sponsors back away from hosting the competition. Harshbarger assured me that he, and the center, would like nothing better than to be able to announce a date and venue for the 2003 competition, if for no other reason than it was a distraction taking their efforts away from the center's main mission. There was no need for him to add that it would also get Hugh Loebner off his back.

So what exactly was the Center's mission? Well, it was to promote behavioral studies, he said.

Here I must admit to a certain amount of head-scratching. I had already been to the center's Web site and still had no real idea what the place was all about. For example, here is what the Web site has to say on the subject of "verbal behavior."

"A great deal of our interactions with others involves verbal behavior, and many people are interested in what happens when you talk to someone. Your behavior when you are speaking is called verbal behavior, and the behavior of the person or persons listening to you (if they respond in some way to what you've said) is called verbally governed behavior."

Hmmm. Many people are interested in what happens when you talk to someone.

Dr. Harshbarger explained to me that Loebner had indeed given $125,000 to the center, and that under the terms of Loebner's gift the center must run the contest and keep the prize money until it's time to award it. The center also gets to keep, permanently, the interest that accrues on the $125,000 as the years go by and bots fail to pass the full Turing test.

I asked Harshbarger why the Cambridge Center didn't just run the competition itself, as Loebner suggested. "We're just not set up for that," he said. "It requires a fair amount of equipment and expertise to do it right." I replied, "Hugh Loebner says it's not complicated at all, that he could run it by himself in his apartment."

Harshbarger laughed a sad laugh, and I could just imagine him holding his head in his hands.

Managing the competition seemed to me an awful lot of work and aggravation merely to earn the annual "gift" of the interest, I suggested. Harshbarger waited a long time before answering "I don't have any comment about that," he said, finally. So I asked him why the center didn't just return the gift to Loebner. He did answer that question for me, but not on the record.

I have since confirmed that the center is indeed actively seeking to give Loebner's gift back to him. This is turning out to be more difficult than one might imagine.

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