When I’m in need of someone to talk to, I now turn to Elbot, that Artificial Intelligence (AI) routine with the cute but annoying robot that did so well on the Turing Test in a recent Turing Test Showdown.

For the uninitiated, the Turing Test was created in 1950 by British Mathematician Alan Turing who said that if a machine was indistinguishable from a human it (the machine) was thinking. Passing the Turing test is probably going to be a requirement for all those new robots on their way after the current economic depression.

I’m not sure if I’d pass the Turing Test. But that’s another matter.

I only have three problems with Elbot,

1. When I tell him (it?) my problems, he always seems to want to turn the conversation back on himself (seems human)

2. He’s not that funny.

3. I wish his name was Tallulah. Elbot sounds so, so, robotic.