Slashdot Mirror
Was Turing Test Legitimately Beaten, Or Just Cleverly Tricked?
beaker_72 (1845996) writes "On Sunday we saw a story that the Turing Test had finally been passed. The same story was picked up by most of the mainstream media and reported all over the place over the weekend and yesterday. However, today we see an article in TechDirt telling us that in fact the original press release was just a load of hype. So who's right? Have researchers at a well established university managed to beat this test for the first time, or should we believe TechDirt who have pointed out some aspects of the story which, if true, are pretty damning?"
Kevin Warwick gives the bot a thumbs up, but the TechDirt piece takes heavy issue with Warwick himself on this front.
They got 30% of the people to think they were texting with a child with limited language skills. I don't think that's what Alan Turing had in mind.
It has nothing to do with actual artificial intelligence and everything to do with writing deceptive scripts. It's not just this incident, it's a problem with the goal of the Turing test itself. I always found the Turing test a kind of stupid exercise due to this.
Yes. TechDirt's points 3 and 6 are basically the same thing I wrote here the other day:
First, that the "natural language" requirement was gamed. It deliberately simulated someone for whom English is not their first language, in order to cover its inability to actually hold a good English conversation. Fail.
Second, that we have learned over time that the Turing test doesn't really mean much of anything. We are capable of creating a machine that holds its own in limited conversation, but in the process we have learned that it has little to do with "AI".
I think some of TechDirt's other points are also valid. In point 4, for example, they explain that this wasn't even the real Turing test.