011018-11 10.1038/nsu011018-11 18 October 2001 technology brain Computer chat lines fail to seduce judges Erica Klarreich Top two prizes for human-like machines unclaimed again.

Richard Wallace (left) and Hugh Gene Loebner (right).© AliceBot.org

The prestigious Loebner Prize gold and silver medals - awarded to computers that convince judges that they are human during a five-minute conversation - have yet again gone unclaimed.

The medals, worth US$100,000 and $25,000 respectively, have never been won in their 11-year history.

After chatting with eight computers and two humans at London's Science Museum, the judges awarded the $2,000 bronze medal for the best program to ALICE, created by Richard Wallace, founder of the ALICE Artificial Intelligence Foundation in San Francisco.

Despite answers such as "Leo said I be capable of learning therefore he classified I as an neural system", one judge ranked ALICE higher than one of the humans, says Wallace.

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