COMPUTERS yesterday moved a step closer to artificially creating human conversation, with experts saying the development will see robots more involved in our lives.
A contest at Reading University challenged five machines to convince humans they were conversing with a person. Each fooled at least one human in a series of five-minute, unrestricted conversations.
The eventual winner, Elbot, managed to fool 25
per cent of its human inquisitors, just missing the 30 per cent "Turing Test" threshold.
In 1950, mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing argued that conversation was proof of intelligence. If a computer talked like a human, then for all practical purposes it thought like a human, too.
In 1991, the American scientist and philanthropist Hugh Loebner oversaw the first annual series of Turing tests. He has offered $100,000 (about £58,000) for the first machine to pass the test. So far none has, although each year a bronze medal is awarded to the closest.
Professor Kevin Warwick, from Reading University's School of Systems Engineering, said: "This demonstrates how close machines are getting to 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."
The full article contains 226 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
