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posted by martyb on Monday June 09 2014, @05:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the is-now-applying-for-college dept.

Today we bring you two submissions on reports of Eugene passing the Turing Test:

Eugene passed the turing test.

Yet another notch in the belt for bad science reporting.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/computer-becomes-first-to-pass-turing-test-in-artificial-intelligence-milestone-but-academics-warn-of-dangerous-future-9508370.html

The singularity is here! jk, lol! While what has happened is an amazing accomplishment and I'm stoked... It doesn't count as a complete passing of the Turing test in my book. This program was written to pass the test, not as a general purpose 'thinking' machine that can pass it. Again, hats off to these guys, but media outlets reporting it as true AI (conjuring images of Data, Rommy, Hal, Sonny, etc.) doesn't seem right.

Turing Test Success

The 65 year-old iconic Turing Test was passed for the very first time by supercomputer Eugene Goostman during Turing Test 2014 held at the renowned Royal Society in London on Saturday.

'Eugene', a computer programme that simulates a 13 year old boy, was developed in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The development team includes Eugene's creator Vladimir Veselov, who was born in Russia and now lives in the United States, and Ukrainian born Eugene Demchenko who now lives in Russia.

http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR583836.aspx

Other reports can be found at Ars Technica, Phys.org, and The Huffington Post.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Blackmoore on Monday June 09 2014, @03:08PM

    by Blackmoore (57) on Monday June 09 2014, @03:08PM (#53255) Journal

    https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140609/07284327524/no-supercomputer-did-not-pass-turing-test-first-time-everyone-should-know-better.shtml [techdirt.com]

    Okay, almost everything about the story is bogus. Let's dig in:

            It's not a "supercomputer," it's a chatbot. It's a script made to mimic human conversation. There is no intelligence, artificial or not involved. It's just a chatbot.
            Plenty of other chatbots have similarly claimed to have "passed" the Turing test in the past (often with higher ratings). Here's a story from three years ago about another bot, Cleverbot, "passing" the Turing Test by convincing 59% of judges it was human (much higher than the 33% Eugene Goostman) claims.
            It "beat" the Turing test here by "gaming" the rules -- by telling people the computer was a 13-year-old boy from Ukraine in order to mentally explain away odd responses.
            The "rules" of the Turing test always seem to change. Hell, Turing's original test was quite different anyway.
            As Chris Dixon points out, you don't get to run a single test with judges that you picked and declare you accomplished something. That's just not how it's done. If someone claimed to have created nuclear fusion or cured cancer, you'd wait for some peer review and repeat tests under other circumstances before buying it, right?
            The whole concept of the Turing Test itself is kind of a joke. While it's fun to think about, creating a chatbot that can fool humans is not really the same thing as creating artificial intelligence. Many in the AI world look on the Turing Test as a needless distraction.

    Oh, and the biggest red flag of all. The event was organized by Kevin Warwick at Reading University

    Starting Score:    1  point
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2014, @05:33PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 09 2014, @05:33PM (#53324)

    Oh, and the biggest red flag of all. The event was organized by Kevin Warwick at Reading University

    Ugh.