SAN FRANCISCO: Visualise this: A debate competition in which your most formidable opponent is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system machine that argues! If you are dismissing it as a scene from a sci-fi movie, hold on: The first public debate competition between a human and a machine unfolded on Monday at the Yerba Buena Centre for Arts in San Francisco when IBM's Project Debater - an AI technology-based computer that resembled a tall speaker -- faced off with 2016 World Debating Championship grand finalist Harish Natarajan on the topic "We should subsidise preschools". Project Debater, which has been developed over the last eight years by IBM researchers across the globe, including India, has been designed to participate in live debates with human debaters. The AI technology, which sources information from different sources including newspaper reports, is expected to lead to unbiased debates that are backed by data and studies. While IBM's Project Debater argued for the topic, Natarajan countered it.