IBM's machine argues with humans

On a stage in San Francisco, IBM's Project Debater spoke, listened and rebutted a human's arguments in what was described as a groundbreaking display of artificial intelligence. The machine drew from a library of "hundreds of millions" of documents - mostly newspaper articles and academic journals - to form its responses to a topic it was not prepared for beforehand. Its performance was not without slip-ups, but those in attendance made clear their thoughts when voting on who did best. While the humans had better delivery, the group agreed, the machine offered greater substance in its arguments. That, IBM said, spoke to the heart of its goal: augmenting human beings to make decisions quickly and with more data than ever before.