Remaining in the medical field, Parry simulated the behavior of a person with paranoid schizophrenia. It was developed in 1972 by psychiatrist Kenneth Colby as a practice tool for his students before they could deal with real patients.
In a slight variation of the Turing test, psychiatrists were asked to read Parry's transcripts and those of real patients to distinguish which of the two they came from. It was an incredible result for that time; the psychiatrists managed to identify a difference in the behavior only 48 percent of the time.
In January 1973, as a demonstration during an international computer conference, computer science pioneer Vint Cerf decided to take bots to their logical conclusion. Using ARPANET, he set up a conversation ...
