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New Contestants On the Turing Test
vitamine73 writes "At 9 a.m. next Sunday, six computer programs — 'artificial conversational entities' — will answer questions posed by human volunteers at the University of Reading in a bid to become the first recognized 'thinking' machine. If any program succeeds, it is likely to be hailed as the most significant breakthrough in artificial intelligence since the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. It could also raise profound questions about whether a computer has the potential to be 'conscious' — and if humans should have the 'right' to switch it off."
No, that's the purpose of cognitive science. Artificial intelligence is the name that we give to the study of technology that is between commonplace and (to borrow Arthur C. Clarke's terminology) magic.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Sort of. It also makes computers more (and less useful). Weak AI allows for developers to offload decisions from the operator to the computer that would normally be tedious but out of the realm of a computer's ability to process. Strong AI is of more scientific use and actually brings up the philosophical quandries. It will bring us to greater understanding of how we think, but don't discount the practical uses of machines that pretend to think.
Can you tell human from machine?
One of these conversations is between Professor Kevin Warwick (KW) and a human; the other between Warwick and a computer. Can you tell which is which?
Conversation one:
Subject: Hello. My name is Nick and I am a human.
KW: Are you happy being a human?
Subject: Yes, I am. Are you? Good. Then we are both happy.
KW: Yes, I am. Are you happy with your life at present?
Subject: Parts of it. I hate my job, but most people do, right?
KW: I'm OK with mine. What is your job?
Subject: I work as an 'online internet advertising monitor', which is fancy language for electronic filing. What do you do?
KW: I interrogate humans and machines.
Subject: Which ones do you prefer, humans or machines?
KW: Which do you prefer?
Subject: Hmm. Depends on for what purpose you mean.
KW: To go to a restaurant, for example?
Subject: Then I would much prefer going with a human.
Conversation two:
Subject: Hello, my name is Mike and I am a man.
KW: Are you happy being a human?
Subject: Judge, I'm a guy.
KW: Does that worry you?
Subject: Don't worry, we'll work everything through.
KW: Do you have worries then?
Subject: Let's move on from that basis.
KW: Why?
Subject: Why? I like this subject.
KW: What is the subject, do you think?
Subject: What is the subject I wonder if I think? I know that it's good to thonk about. Think deeplt about mysterious subjects.
KW: What mysterious subjects?
Subject: Think deeply about mysterious dubjects.
KW: What's a dubject?
Answers:
Conversation one is with a human; conversation two is with the program Ultra Hal.
No shit, Sherlock? The second conversation stops making sense in the first answer.
Actually there's a rather interesting book about this subject, taking an example in Data, but arguing for all kinds of artificial intelligence. "Is Data human? The metaphysics of Star Trek" written by Richard Hanley (Paperback)ISBN: 0-465-04548-0 In this book Hanley, among other things discuess and debate the various kinds of intelligence and how they might come to express themselves. When is intelligence the same as personhood and so on, he even expands on the turing test to test for more than just intelligence. I've been reading this book over and over lately, and can highly recommend it if the notion of what and how an AI is and just what we need to consider when creating and especially testing these machines, interests you.