By Rhodri MarsdenBack in 1950, the British mathematician and cryptographer Alan Turing formulated a test for artificial intelligence which became known as the Turing test: if a human exchanges a series of text-based messages with a machine and another human, and can't tell which one of them is a machine, the machine passes the test. Simple. Turing reckoned on this test being passed within 50 years, but as of 2007 no computer has yet managed it. While some estimates put the pass date at around the year 2020, proof has recently surfaced from security software experts that men desperate for sexual interaction online are willing to believe that just about anything is a real woman, and are perfectly happy to divulge personal information to them during the process of being "seduced".
It's just another example of what's known as social engineering. The most common scam of this type is the email purporting to be from a bank, asking naive computer users to click on a link and "verify" their username and passwords. But this is a relatively new development: an automated software program (with the hilarious name of "CyberLover") which is programmed to flirt with people over instant messaging, before presumably dropping an innocent request for their victim's credit card details into the saucy chat.
Depending on whether you prefer to be tied up and whipped or wined and dined, the software can switch between modes such as "romantic lover" or "sexual predator", and is supposed to be able to strike up 10 relationships in 30 minutes – which you could either see as a triumph of computer programming, or a sad indictment of today's society.
For the time being, CyberLover is a Russian-only invention, but PC Tools, which is monitoring the development, believe that it may be rolled out worldwide in February. So if you are striking a relationship up online, and you find the responses rather cryptic and beguiling, bear in mind that it might not be someone being a kooky tease; it might just be a box plugged into the mains with a cooling fan and a blinking green light.
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