Thursday, October 9, 2008

turing trouble.

The Turing Test, designed by mathematician Alan Turing in 1950, is a test administered to machines to determine whether they are capable of displaying human intelligence. The way it works is a moderator poses a set of questions and basically has a short conversation with a human and a computer counterpart. Afterward the moderator has to point out which one was which, and if he fails to identify the machine correctly, it has passed the test. While no artificial intelligence has ever passed the Turing Test, the idea is that this is ultimately going to be the indication of when a computer has become self-aware, or as I like to call it, the "time to run away to the apocalypse cabin" alarm.

This Sunday, 6 computer programs - with creepy names like Brother Jerome and Eugene Goostman - are going to be "speaking" to interrogators in an attempt to pass the test. I won't be there personally but I imagine it will look something like this:



Yeah...we're pretty much fucked.

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