Very clever

Scientists have dreamed of creating artificial forms of human intelligence since the early days of the computer, and every year they edge nearer to that goal. The accepted test for a computer to be deemed “intelligent” is that 30 percent of the humans interacting with it think they are dealing with a real person. This is the so-called Turing test, laid down by British mathematician Alan Turing in 1950.

To keep the test focused on a machine’s intelligence, rather than its ability to render words into audio, the conversation is limited to a text-only channel, such as a computer keyboard and screen. Every year the top artificial conversational entities (ACEs) from around the world are gathered together and entered into the Loebner Prize, created by American sociologist Hugh Loebner as a way of encouraging scientists to build machines capable of passing the Turing test. None ever have, but this year several almost did.

At the 2008 running of the event, held in October, all of the ACEs managed to fool at least one of their human interrogators. The eventual winner, called Elbot, managed to trick 25 percent – tantalisingly close to the 30 percent threshold.

“This has been a very exciting day with two of the machines getting very close to passing the Turing test for the first time,” said test organiser Professor Kevin Warwick from the University of Reading’s School of Systems Engineering. “Although the machines aren’t yet good enough to fool all of the people all of the time, they are certainly at the stage of fooling some of the people some of the time.”

Even where the human interrogators correctly realised that they were talking to a machine, they rated its conversational abilities very highly, says Warwick. “This demonstrates how close machines are getting to reaching the milestone of communicating with us in a way in which we are comfortable. That eventual day will herald a new phase in our relationship with machines, bringing closer the time in which robots start to play an active role in our daily lives.”

Elbot inventor Fred Roberts, an artificial intelligence consultant from Germany, received a $3,000 award for his machine’s performance. “I wish I was as good at conversation as Elbot,” he joked afterwards.

And was does Elbot have to say? Visit www.elbot.com and you can chat with it. “How do you feel about winning the Loebner Prize?” we asked. “Let’s not talk about amassing wealth, alright?” answered Elbot. Quite an intelligent response.