Wednesday, December 16, 2020
An emerging generation of artificial intelligence could get one step closer to passing the Turing test — a means of determining whether or not a computer is capable of thinking like a human being — all while helping you with your holiday shopping.
With $1 million in funding over three years from Google, a team of computer scientists that includes UC Santa Barbara computer science assistant professor William Wang hopes to gain insights that could lead to a more seamless conversation with online recommender dialog systems — a more interactive version of those AI-powered engines that help you steer toward products and services you could be interested in (think Amazon and Netflix).
![A photo of open web shopping pages displayed on a computer screen](https://engineering.ucsb.edu/sites/default/files/styles/news_left/public/images/news/online-shopping-istock-uc-santa-barbara.jpg?itok=BYWcG5CN)