Intelligent Computers Put To The Test

Intelligent Computers Put To The Test

Sunday, October 05, 2008 - by Marco Chiappetta
Researchers are planning to conduct an experiment at the University of Reading to see if humans can be fooled into thinking they are talking with another human, when in fact they will be talking with a machine. The experiment is a homage to mathematician, logician and cryptographer Alan Turning, who originally proposed the Turing Test, in which a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which try to appear human; if the judge cannot reliably tell which is which, then the machine is said to pass the test.

"Can machines think? That was the question posed by the great mathematician Alan Turing. Half a century later six computers are about to converse with human interrogators in an experiment that will attempt to prove that the answer is yes.

In the 'Turing test' a machine seeks to fool judges into believing that it could be human. The test is performed by conducting a text-based conversation on any subject. If the computer's responses are indistinguishable from those of a human, it has passed the Turing test and can be said to be 'thinking'.

No machine has yet passed the test devised by Turing, who helped to crack German military codes during the Second World War. But at 9am 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 you ask me, these guys are about two decades late. After all, Creative Labs unleashed Dr. Sbaitso on the world with the original Sound Blaster was back in 1992. Dr. Sbaitso could not only converse, he was a doctor for darn sake. Although I hear he wasn't a very good one...
Via: The Guardian | News Archive | Tags: Intel, test, computers, computer
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By 3vi1 on Oct 5, 2008

The winning AI will undoubtedly be a program that perfected its art by luring YahooChat users to porn sites.

Prediction: It will be defeated by asking it a simple math problem. An ironic loss for a ccomputer.

(Yes, I did that on purpose because of the article title)

By Marco C on Oct 5, 2008

You're too fast for me... :)

By 3vi1 on Oct 5, 2008

Lol... sorry, couldn't resist (as I seldom can).

 

Seriously, it will be a long time before a computer tricks me into thinking it's a real person.  Whenever I think I'm talking to a bot... I change the conversation to basic mathmatics.  Most bots can't tell you "what would 11 equal if you added the digit in the tens place to the one in the ones."

I remember hearing, before I got into the UO beta, a story about Lord British running into an NPC and carrying on an extended 20 minute conversation before he realized it was a bot.  At that point I was wondering "Wow, did they actually make a giant leap in AI?!?!?"

About 20 minutes after actually getting into the UO beta, my query changed to "Wow, is Lord British retarded?!?!?!?"

 

By bob_on_the_cob on Oct 5, 2008

3vi1:

 

Prediction: It will be defeated by asking it a simple math problem. An ironic loss for a ccomputer.

Lol This is one of those things that always seems just off the horizon. Like my computer being just the way I want it.

 

By warlord on Oct 5, 2008

bob_on_the_cob:

3vi1:

 

Prediction: It will be defeated by asking it a simple math problem. An ironic loss for a ccomputer.

Lol This is one of those things that always seems just off the horizon. Like my computer being just the way I want it.

 

Well put bob

 

By Super Dave on Oct 5, 2008

News:
Researchers are planning to conduct an experiment at the University of Reading to see if humans can be fooled into thinking they are talking with another human, when in fact they will be talking with a machine.

Can we get two of the machines to talk to each other? Could be some interesting conversation there!Big Smile

 

By chih on Oct 11, 2008

 hi~

i saw this reported on my class time <3 <3

do you know how to connect with those six intellignt computers? ^_^ cause i really want to chat with them so bad!!! hehehe~

do you know the website to chatting with them??

By bob_on_the_cob on Oct 11, 2008

chih:

 hi~

i saw this reported on my class time <3 <3

do you know how to connect with those six intellignt computers? ^_^ cause i really want to chat with them so bad!!! hehehe~

do you know the website to chatting with them??

Not sure that we can. Maybe at a later date.

 

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