Loebner Prize

The Loebner Prize is an annual competition in artificial intelligence that awards prizes to the chatterbot considered by the judges to be the most human-like. The format of the competition is that of a standard Turing test. In each round, a human judge simultaneously holds textual conversations with a computer program and a human being via computer. Based upon the responses, the judge must decide which is which.

The contest began in 1990 by Hugh Loebner in conjunction with the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, Massachusetts, United States. It has since been associated with Flinders University, Dartmouth College, the Science Museum in London, and most recently the University of Reading. In 2004 and 2005, it was held in Loebner's apartment in New York City.

Within the field of artificial intelligence, the Loebner Prize is somewhat controversial; the most prominent critic, Marvin Minsky, has called it a publicity stunt that does not help the field along.

In addition, the time limit of 5 minutes and the use of untrained and unsophisticated judges has resulted in some wins that may be due to trickery rather than to plausible intelligence, as one can judge from transcripts of winning conversations (linked below).