Turing Test Dead End

over the years, i have used irc and other chat systems as a resource and for entertainment. while goofing around the other day, i was surprised to see that the quality of message bots—spam bots, in particular—has actually deteriorated. heavy users of aol say the same thing has happened there. years ago the bots that popped up and tried to sucker you into conversations leading you to web-site promotions or scams were more like real people. now the coders of these bots just seem to have given up. i've also noticed that in the general discussion there is less and less talk about machines that can hold a conversation. what happened? what changed?