Software passes Turing test

New Scientist : In 1952 Alan Turing introduced the best-known version of his eponymous test of artificial intelligence: If a human talking to a machine believes he or she is talking to a human, the machine has passed the test. Cleverbot , software created by Rollo Carpenter, passed a formal Turing test at the Techniche festival in Guwahati, India, on 3 September. Carpenter says passing the test indicates the ability to imitate intelligence, rather than proving the presence of intelligence itself. During the test, 30 volunteers conducted a typed 4-minute conversation with an unknown entity. Half of them conversed with humans, while the other half conversed with Cleverbot. The software was judged to be human by 59.3% of the people who interacted with it—not far off from the 63.3% of actual humans judged as such during the test.