Alan Turing predicted that in 50 years, “it will be possible to program computers . . . to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70 percent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning.”

Well, he was almost right, as Brian Christian explains in The Most Human Human, his illuminating book about the Turing test…. The winning chatbot is awarded the title “Most Human Computer,” while the confederate who elicits “the greatest number of votes and greatest confidence from the judges” is awarded the title “Most Human Human.”

It was this title that Christian — a poet with degrees in computer science and philosophy — set out, in 2009, to win….