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).

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