By Jill Ruchala

CHATTERBOTS On Sunday, the 14th-annual Loebner Prize competition pitted humans against robots in an effort to answer mathematician Alan Turing's question, "Can a machine think?"

The event was held in benefactor Hugh Loebner's apartment. In previous years, Loebner's Turing Tests were held as far away as England and Australia, but the philanthropist's verbal support for the legalization of prostitution has caused him—and his Prize—to fall out of the scientific limelight.

Four judges held chat sessions on two monitors, simultaneously, for 25 minutes—one was with a nascent artificial intelligence program, the other with a human typing in a separate room. The goal was to determine which conversation was which; if a judge can't clearly identify the human, the reasoning goes, then the machine is indeed thinking.

I was one of the "confederates" chatting behind a closed door. One of my computer counterparts was Toni, a program modeled on a 19-year-old female raised in a suburban household. Everything she knows, she learned in AOL chat rooms.

A portion of her transcript with the judge:

Judge: Hey, Toni. How are you?

Toni: human perception is shit.

Why do you say that? anarchy is impossible because human nature is to group up and conform

Are you an anarchist? anarchist?

Someone who believes in anarchy is an anarchist. I support anarchy

You dislike government? LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico—parents work at the government lab

Did they develop the atomic bomb? cuz I know who my mom would bomb

What does your mom do? my ex bf wouldn't bomb anybody

What would you like to talk about? What's an anti-bible bomb

What the hell are you talking about Who Will Jesus Bomb

St. Peter will bomb Jesus, I think jesus i hope not

Are you trying to convert me? convince wacko christians to convert to atheism

Not bad for a robot. Or a 19-year-old suburban girl.

Hugh Loebner's offer of $100,000 for a machine that passes the Turing Test has so far gone unclaimed, though this year the A.L.I.C.E. Artificial Intelligence Foundation took home the bronze (and $2000) for the third time. The Silver Edition of their prize pig, A.L.I.C.E., rated most human of the machines.

We may be years away from sentient machines, but in the meantime, for $10 a month you can have unlimited chat with A.L.I.C.E.'s cousin, Dave, the E.S.L. bot at alicebot.org. Hopefully, he's a little less cynical than your average 19-year-old chat-room-raised chatterbot. o