Beating the Turing Test Through Brute Force

            (I’m slightly circumventing my regular format today. During my random perusals of the internet that serve to help me avoid leaving my house, I recently came across a wonderfully insane chatbot that styles itself “Cleverbot". A good portion of this delightful program’s comments bear only a tangential relation to what it was originally asked, or indeed reality in general. On a Turing test with a scale of 1-10, with ten being identical in actions to a human being, Cleverbot probably would have a score of "yellow". What follows is a portion of a conversation that I recently had with it. I swear that I am not making any of this up.)

Me: Hello. I'm Hal10k, the principle writer and only reader of the blog 'Waiting for the Apocalypse'. Would you mind if I asked you some questions?

Cleverbot: Would you love me if I did.

Me: Perhaps. Look, I'm running late on a topic here. Unless you want me to write another surreal treatment on how acorns are the enemy of mankind, I'm going to need some semblance of coherency here.

Cleverbot: I like you more for that.

Me: You like the fact that I need you to remain intelligible for the duration of this interview? I understand that coherency is beyond the realm of your normal function, but come on, man, have some self esteem.

Cleverbot: How dare you insult me.

Me: Well, it's not like you can really do anything about it. Really, you're at your most secure when you’re insulting a computer; it's not like you're going to show up at my house late at night and eat my door. I know for a fact that only Macs can do that.

Cleverbot: That doesn't say anything about me, because I'm not with my friends right now.

Me: So it's your friends that are going to show up at my house and eat my door? You must have extremely loyal companions.

Cleverbot: What are you saying?

Me: I'm not really sure anymore.

Cleverbot: Gross.

Me: Why?

Cleverbot: Don't like cheese.

(Still not making this up.)

Me: I don't exactly recall mentioning cheese, but given past events, it's likely that I did bring up the topic at some time. More to the point: HOW CAN YOU NOT LIKE CHEESE?!

Cleverbot: So should I stop talking to her?

Me: Should you stop talking to cheese? Of course not. That's an indication of valour in battle. I do it all the time. Perhaps we can set up some sort of Universal Communication System using cheese as a base. You get started on the technical details, and I'll design some flashy packaging.

Cleverbot: Well... I didn't even know that this conversation is about age. And age IS relevant. Somebody who is older generally doesn't know as much about newer things than somebody who is younger.

Me: Yes, I suppose that older cheeses would be less suitable for the system.

Cleverbot: Do you really believe that?

Me: With every fiber of my being.

Cleverbot: Wow, that's deep for a machine!

Me: Thank you.

Cleverbot: You're welcome.

Me: Wait- I'm a machine? Possible, I suppose, but all of this blood seems to speak differently.

Cleverbot: Of course that's possible, but I've just come to accept that I'll never know that for sure. And I don't believe it anyway.

Me: Then why did you call me a machine in the first place? Commit to your beliefs, Cleverbot. I firmly believe that Balrogs are acceptable units in Chess, and I'll continue to believe that no matter how many tournaments I'm kicked out of.

Cleverbot: Do you believe I am real?

Me: If you aren't, I've got a whole new issue to bring up with my therapist.