You wrote: "Today a computer can, with a bit of care in programming inflections and such into the speech, [sound] very much like a human,..."

So true. I developed a short video clip regarding this and posted it on YouTube. I developed it for entertainment. It isn't supposed to be an actual Turing test or demonstration of an actual Turing test. But it is my way of showing how advanced software can communicate with humans. A new way of Human-Computer interaction.

Hallie talks with Dave (a look into the future of Voice Recognition)

The software used in the demo is e-Speaking (http://www.e-Speaking.com) in case you're interested. The demo is a series of voice commands where my command is responded to by the computer with an elaborate statement (pre-programmed). Again, this isn't exactly Artificial Intelligence. But it does seem a little like a conversation between man and machine. ;-)