ADULT CHATBOT SERIES

After obtaining a victim’s name and telephone number from their social media profile, TextGirlie would send the victim a personalised message asking them to continue the conversation in an online chatroom. Security research firm Cloudmark has documented the rise of a flirtatious bot called “ TextGirlie”. Scammers are well aware of this phenomenon. “That’s really the key to creating a believable chatbot – writing responses which are believable, entertaining and engaging.” “The people who are the most skilful authors of these bots are not people who are computer programmers, they are people who work in a creative field,” says Wallace. Wallace is the creator of a bot called Alice, which on three occasions has won the Loebner Prize – a Turing-like contest in which chatbots vie to convince judges that they are human. The bots most likely to fool us employ colourful trickery, explains Richard Wallace of Pandorabots, which makes chatbots for customer service and other uses. A recent report found that 61.5% of internet traffic is generated by automated programs called bots. Although most people think of the web as a place primarily frequented by humans, the reality turns out to be quite different. There are certainly plenty of them out there. Some are sophisticated enough to infiltrate social networks and perhaps even influence public opinion. We’re already surrounded by bots capable of tricking us into thinking they are real people, and they don’t enter competitions. However, what chatbots are fully capable of in everyday life is far more interesting. Turing’s test stopped being important for AI research years ago, and many scientists see the contests as flawed because they can be won with trickery – such as pretending to be a non-native English speaker.

So does this announcement mark the era of human-like AI, as has been claimed? Not really.

ADULT CHATBOT SERIES

During a series of text-based conversations, a computer program named Eugene Goostman persuaded judges it was a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy, thus passing a benchmark for artificial intelligence proposed years ago by the computer scientist Alan Turing.

This week, a controversial claim was made that a ‘chatbot’ passed the Turing test at an event at the Royal Society in London. In fact, if you use social media or spend any time online, it’s quite possible you’ve already been a victim. The bots don’t really care how they trick you – their only objective is to make you think they’re human. Sometimes it’s because they seem wise, friendly or just funny. Sometimes it’s the promise of sex that fools you.

Adult chatbot