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New Contestants On the Turing Test

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the game-on dept.

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."

3 of 630 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting by internerdj · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If we don't have the right to switch off a conscious machine (one that passes the Turing test) does that imply we have the right to switch off a human who fails a Turing test?

  2. I wouldn't pray for that by Moraelin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1. In the Turing test, as it was proposed by Turing, basically there is no way for a human to fail it. The test involves a double blind test, where each user interacts with a human and with a machine. Then if the users can't tell which of them is the human, the machine has "won". If the users correctly voted on which of them is the machine, the machine has "lost." There is no scenario there in which the human didn't pass the test. The human is the control point there, not the one taking the test.

    2. But maybe you mean a test with only one entity, where basically you just have to say if that entity is too dumb to be a human.

    I wouldn't really pray for that to be reasons for "disconnecting" someone. There was a story on /. a while back, titled, basically, "how I failed the Turing test."

    Basically someone's ICQ number had landed on a list of sex bots. For some people that was definitive and refutable proof that he is a bot, and nothing he could say would change that. When he got one or two to ask stuff to see if he's a human, the questions were stuff where really the only correct answer for a normal human (as opposed to, say, a nerd who has to sound like he knows everything) was "I don't know." That "I don't know" was further taken as confirmation that he is a bot after all.

    So do you want those people to be the ones who judge whether you live or die?

    Furthermore, for most people, gullibility is akin to a deadly sin, and being fooled by a machine is akin to an admission of being terminally gullible. By comparison voting that a living human is probably a machine, counts just as being skeptical, which is actually something positive. So all things being equal, the safe vote for their self-image is that you're a machine. No matter what you say. Are you sure you want to risk life and limb on that kind of a lopsided contest?

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
  3. My daughter would not pass the Turing Test by greg_barton · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My daughter is 13 months old. She would not pass the Turing Test, yet is undeniably intelligent.

    She recognizes my wife and I and all of our relatives, but is wary of strangers.

    She learned cause and effect many months ago by observation: when you press a button, cool stuff happens. (We pick up the remote, she looks at the TV. We put a hand on a light switch, she looks at the light.)

    She knows our relatives' names, and will look at them when you ask "Where's Charles?" or "Where's Lindsey?"

    She responds to simple requests like, "Could you bring me the toy?"

    She's learned how to crawl. She's learned how to walk. She's learned simple sign language for "light," "dog," "food," and "more."

    I'm a long time amatuer AI hacker/researcher. I've learned more about artificial intelligence from watching my daughter develop than from my MS in CS and the bits of PhD work I did. There's an entire childhood, a virtual lifetime, of development and ability behind "carrying on a conversation." Creating a facade that does so, no matter how complex, (and we haven't even done that yet) will not be intelligent. Period. And I think it's the focus on the end results, (i.e. simulated conversation) and not on the long tedious journey it takes to create a being, that's hobbled AI research for 50 years.

    True AI will never be developed if we continue to focus on the result of, and not the journey to, intelligence.