Almost human: Interview with a chatbot

Every year the Loebner Prize for artificial intelligence is awarded to the chatbot software able to converse most like a human. It is a version of the Turing test, proposed in 1950 by Alan Turing. A program passes when a human judge cannot tell that they are talking to a machine. No machine has yet passed. But the winner of the Loebner Prize at the weekend – Elbot, brainchild of Fred Roberts at Artificial Solutions in Germany – came close, according to the contest's rather generous rules.