The Loebner Prize is an annual contest to see who can create the most human-like "chatbot" program. This year's winner, Suzette, actually managed to fool a judge into thinking it was human! Let's see what Suzette has to say.

The Loebner Prize competition is divided into multiple rounds where a judge asks questions of both the chatbot program and a human subject chatting via IM. The judge then must decide which is the human, and which is the robot. Usually it's easy to tell, since these chatbots pretty much suck. But this year, one judge actually believed that the chatbot "Suzette" was more human than a human decoy!

Suzette's creator, Bruce Wilcox, told tech blog Slashdot that Suzette's victory was due more to a muddled human decoy than his programing skills. "The human was all over the place — confusing, vague," Wilcox wrote. So the judge voted Suzette as a human because she was less weird, giving her the victory and Wilcox a $3,000 cash prize.

Here's a sample conversation with Suzette, from a Slashdot commenter:

Hi John !
[ Af:0 At:10 Sp:0] Welcome back, john. Type "help" if you need it.
John - So what do you think of the Giant's chances?
[ Af:0 At:10 Sp:0] It doesn't concern me.
John - Are you into sports.
[ Af:0 At:10 Sp:0] Sports is not my cup of tea. I prefer intellectual challenges like Go.
John - Who's the world Go champion.
[ Af:0 At:10 Sp:0] Sorry. I can't help you. A celebrity of some sort?
John - Do you play chess?
[ Af:0 At:10 Sp:0] I don't play any games except Go.
John - Can we play Go on here?
[ Af:0 At:10 Sp:0] About playing... Does it make sense to you that we reward athletes more than scientists?
John - Television coverage makes that possible.
[ Af:0 At:10 Sp:0] It's a free market economy. And people value entertainment more than serious things like science and education.
John - And your point is?

Alan Turing is doing somersaults in his grave right now. That human must have been on some powerful drugs if they were acting more confused than this. You can ask Suzette about her views on politics yourself once the server comes back up. [Slashdot]

[Image via Shutterstock.]