Am I arguing with a machine? AI debaters highlight need for transparency

Can a machine powered by artificial intelligence (AI) successfully persuade an audience in debate with a human? Researchers at IBM Research in Haifa, Israel, think so. They describe the results of an experiment in which a machine engaged in live debate with a person. Audiences rated the quality of the speeches they heard, and ranked the automated debater's performance as being very close to that of humans. Such an achievement is a striking demonstration of how far AI has come in mimicking human-level language use (N.