Mathematician Alan Turing, who is considered the father of modern computer technology, designed a test during the 1950s, to measure for artificial intelligence. If a computer, communicating by means of text-only in a natural language conversation could fool humans into believing it was itself human, then it could be classified as intelligent.

Scientists conducted a study at the University of Reading to see if modern computers could pass the Turing test (many computers have tried before but failed). They conducted an experiment on Sunday whereby a computer screen showed two instant messenger windows, one opening a conversation with a human, the other with one of six Artificial Conversational Entities (ACEs). The judges did not know who was who, and the ACEs each did their best to convince the judges that they were human.

How did they fare? Well, the artificial intelligence test as laid out by Turing says that a computer must be able to fool at least 30% of judges in order to be considered passed. None of these robots managed to hit that mark, although some came remarkably close, with the test’s winner the Elbot (available online here) tricking 25%. Nevertheless all of them managed to fool at least one of the judges

The tests took place as part of the 18th Loebner Prize for artificial intelligence. This annual competition awards prizes for the most human-like of the computer entrants. As winners, the Elbot’s programmers were awarded GBP 1,760 in prize money.

Where the judges correctly recognized that the conversation partners were machines, they rated the conversational abilities of the ACEs at an average of 80% to 90%.

"This demonstrates how close machines are getting to reaching the milestone of communicating with us in a way in which we are comfortable," said Kevin Warwick from the University of Reading's School of Systems Engineering. Warwick went on to say that while the ACE computers weren't yet good enough to fool all the people all of the time, they were certainly capable of "fooling some of the people some of the time".