THE spaghetti hit the fan when New Scientist ran a story about ChatNannies – software packed with artificial intelligence that hunted for paedophiles in internet chat rooms. Jim Wightman, the creator, claimed that by conversing with chat-room participants, his “nanniebots” could identify adults masquerading as children (New Scientist, 20 March, p 23).
Criticisms flooded in. Many argued that to achieve all he had claimed, Wightman must have solved many of the problems of AI. To answer these critics, Wightman agreed that New Scientist, together with UK-based AI researchers Nick Webb from the University of Sheffield and Andy Pryke from the…
