How I Failed the Turing Test

chrisjrn writes "I stubled across this article today, detailing a man's experiences of being added to AIM Screen Name lists - one full of "celebrities" and the other full of "Sex Bots" (he was, of course, neither of these). Raises a few questions as to how easy it is to get a hold of your screenname, and also of the effectiveness of the Turing Test for AI, in the online world. Or is it just that people aren't bothered trying to tell the humans apart anymore?" Also, it's funny. Don't try to read anything deep into it.

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[hagrin]

... from those buddies on your list. I really fail to see exactly what the "security" risk is here - if you're hypersensitive about the people messaging you, then you can choose to be hypersensitive, lose some functionality and turn off the "randomness" factor. Most people exchange IM names through some other means of communications, either verbally or written, so this loss of functionality can be sidestepped while maintaining your online secrecy.

For those who don't know..

[weg]

The Hitchhiker's Guide of the Galaxy defines "Turing Test" as follows:

A test for artificial intelligence suggested by the mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing. The gist of it is that a computer can be considered intelligent when it can hold a sustained conversation with a computer scientist without him being able to distinguish that he is talking with a computer rather than a human being.

Some critics suggest this is unreasonably difficult since most human beings are incapable of holding a sustained conversation with a computer scientist.

After a moments thought they usually add that most computer scientists aren't capable of distinguishing humans from computers anyway.