A near Human bot wins mega prize for telling the Judge he's not human

British computer chat program, called George, has won an
international prize for holding the most convincingly human-like conversation.
During the competition, the computer programs had to "chat"
anonymously with four judges. The judges also chatted with four humans, each
paired with a program. The judges then awarded "humanity" points to
each of the pairs. At one point in George's "conversation" with one
of the judges, it accused the judge of not being human and discussed its lack of
hobbies.

George and its creator Rollo Carpenter, had competed against
three other talkative bot finalists in New York. George managed to convince the
judges enough to earn himself the Hugh Loebner's Bronze Medal, and $3,000
(£1,660), which goes to the most convincing entrant. The gold medal and Grand
Prize of $100,000 (£55,400), which goes to the bot that completely fools the
judges, has remained unclaimed since the competition's inception in 1990.

In previous years, Carpenter has entered the competition with
the program, Jabberwacky. This year, George was entered as a slightly different
variant of that program. George is a "character" which has learned its
conversation skills from the interactions it has had with visitors to the
Jabberwacky website, and through chats with Carpenter.

"The time of the learning AI is now and here. In a number
of fields, technologies that observe and apply patterns in data to real-world
situations have already come to the fore," explained Carpenter.

source for both: www.bbc.co.uk

Jasmine Kaur