Mechanical Conversation 1800, 1900, 2000 – from von Kempelen's ‘Speech Organ' to ‘Alice the Chatterbot'.

Is it possible to construct a machine whose conversation could be taken for human? From Descartes to Turing, from von Kempelen to the programmers of ALICE, cybernetic theorists and engineers have posed this question. The machines they built to answer it are described below – a sobering tale.