2009 Loebner Prize

Posted by Victoria Nicks Oct 6, 2009

Each year, the Loebner Prize Competition in Artificial Intelligence allows AI programmers to pit their skills against a set of judges, in an attempt to pass the Turing Test. Unfortunately, to date, the judges have been easily able to determine the difference between AI programs and human responses.

The Loebner Foundation offers a $25,000.00 prize to any programmer who can create an artificial intelligence program that has is indistinguishable from a human, using a testing protocol based on the Turing Test. Alan Turing conceived this test, to determine the success of Artificial Intelligence Programming.

In 2009, as in past years, the $25,000.00 Loebner Prize has gone unclaimed. David Levy, who also won the First Prize in 1997, won the First Prize, and $3,000.00, for Do-Much-More, the AI program that was rated highest by the judges. While his program was unable to fool the judges, it was rated at 4.5, and determined to be the closest to a human response among the entrants.

• To simulate a Turing Test at home, try this Easy Science Fair Experiment Testing AI.

• Read here about Artificial Intelligence Myths, to understand the capabilities of artificial intelligence software.