Reporter Clive Thompson recently chatted with "babygurl01475", an Instant Messenger persona developed by someone out there to get people like Thompson horny enough to part with his credit card number. Because Clive is supposed to think that babygurl01475 is a real person who wants him badly.
Babygurl failed. Thompson wasn't fooled. But he did manage to have an interesting, ridiculous conversation with the chat/sexbot. His explanation of what the Turing Test actually is didn't seem to register with his online pal, but the rest of us, who all deal with disappointingly unintelligent virtual characters a few times a week, can learn something from it. Check out the full chat.
"Let's get this party started!" My evening talking to "babygurl01475" … [Collision Detection, via Twitter]