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International Business Machines (IBM) fell short in its latest attempt to prove machines can triumph over man. But it came close.The tech giant’s six-year-old artificial intelligence debating system, affectionately dubbed “Miss Debater,” went head-to-head with one of the world’s most decorated practitioners. After a 25-minute rapid-fire exchange about pre-school subsidies — during which the female-voiced AI showed flashes of very homo sapien humour — the audience handed the victory to 31-year-old Harish Natarajan.
The unorthodox contest marked the latest highly marketed man-versus-machine challenge. In 1996, IBM created a computer system that beat a chess grandmaster for the first time.
In 2011, its Watson supercomputer defeated two record-winning Jeopardy! contestants. And Alphabet’s AlphaGo famously proved AI can master the ancient and intricate game of Go But debating — which requires creativity and emotive elocution — has proven more elusive.
IBM’s machine — known formally as Project Debater — kicked off Monday’s match-up with a cheeky greeting. “I have heard you hold the world record in debate competition wins against humans, but I suspect you have never debated a machine. Welcome to the future.”
The event unfolded in front of hundreds of journalists, tech industry insiders and software engineers at IBM’s Think conference in San Francisco. The topic: We should subsidise pre-schools. Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty was among the spectators, who voted Natarajan the victor, but also said her company’s machine better enriched their knowledge.
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