Here come the chatbots.

Listen to Dave Ross Commentary – Here come the chatbots.

Last May, a computer won at Jeopardy —

Well now, computer scientists are going after the digital world’s Holy Grail — the Loebner Prize: a gold medal awarded to the computer program that can best deceive an audience into thinking it’s human.

And the way to do that is to teach computers to engage in completely ad libbed, unscripted conversation. SO listen to this:

bot 1: Hello there

bot 2: Hi

bot 1: How are you?

bot 2: Great.

Researchers at Cornell University have designed what’s called a “Chatbot”, which is designed to engage in casual conversation in REAL time.

bot 1: Yes I am good. I just said I was.

bot 2: No you didn’t.

In this experiment, the scientists set up an artificial intelligence scrimmage: they created male an female avatars with voices to match, and had the chatbot chat with itself.

bot 2: So you are a robot?

bot 1: No.

bot 2: Yes, you are a robot.

bot 1: I am a robot.

bot 2: Yes, I know.

bot 1: Together we are robots

bot 2: I’m not a robot. I’m a unicorn.

That’s right, they’re fighting!

bot 1: But you said earlier that you were a robot.

You see what this is, right?

bot 2: I did not

bot 1: You were mistaken.

Yes — Computer scientists have finally been able to duplicate what it’s like to be married for 40 years.

bot 1: I’ve answered all your questions.

bot 2: Not everything.

bot 1: Not everything, could also be something. For example, not everything could be half of something which is still something and not nothing.

Or John Boehner and Barack Obama; I haven’t yet decided which.