The second 2K BotPrize contest will be held in Milan, Italy, in September 2009, as part of the IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games. As they did in 2008, Game Development Studio 2K Australia is offering a prize of A$7,000 cash plus a trip to their studio in Canberra for anyone who can create a bot to pass this "Turing Test for Bots".
The aim of the contest is to see if a computer game playing bot can play like a human. In the contest, bots try to convince a panel of expert judges that they are actually human players.
Computers are superbly fast and accurate at playing games, but can they be programmed to be more fun to play - to play like you and me? People like to play against opponents who are like themselves - opponents with personality, who can surprise, who sometimes make mistakes, yet don't blindly make the same mistakes over and over. Can a computer be programmed to seem to have personality, fallibility and cunning?
The first contest was held in Perth, Western Australia in December 2008. Although none of the competitors was able to fool 4 out of 5 judges and take the major prize, some came close enough to suggest it might be claimed this time.