Think Fast, Clever Robot

HALF A CENTURY ago, Alan Turing, the mathematician who pioneered computational theory, came up with a simple test to determine whether or not a computer could "think." The test involved asking the machine a series of questions; if it responded with the same unmistakable joie de vivre of a human being, you could call it a thinking machine.

Thinking machines aren't easy to come by. To anyone's knowledge, no machine has passed Turing's test, even though there has been a $100,000 prize offered for it during the last 10 years. That prize – the Loebner Prize, named after Hugh Loebner, its philanthropist sponsor – is being held again this weekend in London.

1. Alan Turing - Alan Mathison Turing OBE FRS (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist.

2. Loebner Prize - The Loebner Prize is an annual competition in artificial intelligence that awards prizes to the computer programs considered by the judges to be the most human-like.