The Ebert test gauges whether a computer-based synthesized voice can tell a joke with sufficient skill to cause people to

laugh Laughter is a pleasant physical reaction and emotion consisting usually of rhythmical, often audible contractions of the diaphragm and other parts of the respiratory system. It is a response to certain external or internal stimuli. Laughter ...

. It was proposed by film critic Roger Ebert at the 2011 TED conference as a challenge to

software developers A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

to have a computerized voice master the inflections, delivery, timing, and intonations of a speaking human. The test is similar to the

Turing test The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluato ...

proposed by

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical co ...

in 1950 as a way to gauge a computer's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior by generating performance indistinguishable from a human being. Ebert lost his voice after surgery to treat cancer. He employed a Scottish company called

CereProc CereProc ( ) is a speech synthesis company based in Edinburgh, Scotland, founded in 2005. The company specialises in creating natural and expressive-sounding text to speech voices, synthesis voices with regional accents, and in voice cloning. ...

, which custom-tailors

text-to-speech Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal langua ...

software for voiceless customers who record their voices at length before losing them, and mined tapes and DVD commentaries featuring Ebert to create a voice that sounded more like his own voice.Jones, Chris
"Roger Ebert: The Essential Man"
'' Esquire'' magazine. February 16, 2010] He first publicly used the voice they devised for him in his March 2, 2010, appearance on ''

The Oprah Winfrey Show ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', often referred to as ''The Oprah Show'' or simply ''Oprah'', is an American daytime syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicago, Illinois. Produced ...

''. Tucker, Ken
"'Oprah': Roger Ebert predicts the Oscars, movingly: 'No more surgery for me'"
''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cu ...

''. March 2, 2010

References

External links

Roger Ebert's appearance at TED conference 2011
Speech synthesis Tests Roger Ebert Laughter Siskel and Ebert {{compu-AI-stub