AI Researchers Say 'Rascals' Might Pass Turing Test

An anonymous reader writes "Passing the Turing test is the holy grail of artificial intelligence (AI) and now researchers claim it may be possible using the world's fastest supercomputer (IBM's Blue Gene). This version of the Turing test pits a human conversing with a synthetic character powered by Rascals software crafted at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. RPI is aiming to pass AI's final exam this fall, by pairing the most powerful university-based supercomputing system in the world with its new multimedia group which is designing a holodeck, a la Star Trek."

Comments

The Loebner Prize

[Anonymous Coward]

Limiting the topic: In order to limit the amount of area that the contestant programs must be able to cope with, the topic of the conversation was to be strictly limited, both for the contestants and the confederates. The judges were required to stay on the subject in their conversations with the agents.

Limiting the tenor: Further, only behavior evinced during the course of a natural conversation on the single specified topic would be required to be duplicated faithfully by the contestants. The operative rule precluded the use of ``trickery or guile. Judges should respond naturally, as they would in a conversation with another person.'' (The method of choosing judges served as a further measure against excessive judicial sophistication.)

The reason for the holodeck reference

[chriss]

One of the problems for any entity trying to communicate like a human is that we share some common knowledge which is based on our physical existence (pigs can't fly, but fall etc.) Some AI projects like (Open)Cyc have tried to feed their AI with a very large number of simple facts, but to "understand" some concepts you have to experience them. Try to explain the difference between red and blue to someone who was born blind.

The 3D communication (holodeck) aspect mentioned is therefore an attempt to have an AI "living" in a human like space, to enable it to develop a similar world view. What's new about Rascals (Rensselaer Advanced Synthetic Architecture for Living Systems) seems to be something else ("Rascals is based on a core theorem proving engine that deduces results (proves theorems) about the world after pattern-matching its current situation against its knowledge base.") that is very computing intensive. Whether this will make any real difference remains to be seen, a lot of other approaches have failed and they so far have only succeeded with very limited models.

Re:yes, but is it really intelligent?

[grahamd0]

Actually, Voight-Kampff tested for emotional responses (or lack thereof), not intelligence. I don't think there was ever a question as to whether or not replicants were intelligent.