September means it’s time for The Loebner Prize, the annual recognition for advances in AI. This award is meant for any AI that achieves or exceeds human capacity, passing the Turing test, and to date, none have won. The Loebner Prize Originating in 1990 by Hugh Loebner, each year a winner stands to receive a grand prize of $100,000 for advances in AI within textual, visual, and auditory categories.

As much as the online giants seem to squeeze brick-and-mortar retailers, when you need milk at 10 o’clock at night, they can’t beat the convenience of stopping in at the local grocery store. …And the brick-and-mortar stores are taking advantage of this competitive edge. Using advances in AI, the brick-and-mortar retailers are finding ways to make the most profit from your 10-minute trip to their store for milk.

A year and a half ago, there were a few websites that offered online chat, but only during business hours. Now, almost every retail, cell phone, or travel site has a bot that’s always ready to chat. Do they really have someone standing by just for a chat? The answer is, of course, “No.” Instead of an employee typing to you in the wee hours of the morning, there is an artificial intelligence on the other end of the line. You’ve reached a Chatbot.