Loebner Prize 2008

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For a quick report on this year Loebner prize and on how far machines are from behaving even remotely intelligently, click on the title of this blog.

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This year, for the first time in its history, the Loebner Prize competition was held in England, at the University of Reading to be precise. It was organised by Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah. Independently of whether Turing might have been pleased (he was not well treated in this country, recall?), there was a satisfying sense of “coming home” of the Turing Test (henceforth TT ). Expectations were high, and they very highly advertised too. The meeting was perfectly organised. Having been invited to play the role of a judge, together with several other colleagues, including two members of the IEG , Mariarosaria Taddeo and Matteo Turilli ( here are their pictures and Rosaria's interview ) , I enjoyed the opportunity to see from close-up the machinery and the TT . It was intriguing and great fun. Because there were interviews with the BBC and other things going on, and because we were also supposed to take part in the parallel AISB Symposium on the TT , I had time to test only...
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