Depends.  Maxwell renderer had 'gamma testers' as you define them - at $1000 a pop.  I had an 'alpha tester' - no upfront costs.  As a matter of fact, for his excellent help he gets a life-time registration.  It was like having someone to slap you when you implement things stupidly or don't think of a simple workflow enhancement. :)

Per your response to NLP, it just goes to show that Turing had it all wrong.  It is easy to 'fake' a computer program that is convincing as a real human being - to a certain level.  The hard part (afaiac) is not grammatics or syntax or semantics, but understanding.  Just like these autonomous driving vehicles can navigate and 'read' the road, avoid obstacles, and arrive at a destination - they are just sophisticated processing devices.  Mind you (pun - sorry), living organisms are just sophisticated processing devices.  It's just that there is that level of conscious interface between the 'real world' and the one fed into our brains that noone has ascertained as of yet.

I'll have to explore that Racter wiki in more depth when I'm at a lull in development - thanks! :)

C makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. C++ makes it harder, but when you do, you blow your whole leg off.

 -- Bjarne Stroustrup

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