Turing Test

I propose to consider the question, "Can Machines Think?"
- Alan Mathison Turing, Computing Machinery and Intelligence, Mind 59, 1950, p. 433-460

Alan Turing proposed an operational test of intelligence as a replacement for the philosophical question, "Can machines think?" Variations of this test have been used to assess performance levels of many AI programs. A restricted adaptation of the Turing Test popularized by the Loebner Competition has been fun, although currently many AI scientists criticize the restricted version of the test because it does not provide insights into the mechanisms of thought. Turing's contributions to mathematics, computer science and early AI extend well beyond his seminal paper proposing the test.

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Good Starting Places

Publication

Meet Your Mind Comic

Neuroscientists have made remarkable discoveries about the brain, but so far, no one's come close to cracking the biggest mystery of all -- the connection between the brain and the mind: how a tangle of neurons inside your skull produces... you.

Nov 4 2012, By Ottaviani, J., Nourigat, N.

comic

Podcast

The Turing Problem

100 years ago this year, the man who first conceived of the computer age was born. His name was Alan Turing. He was also a math genius, a hero of World War II and he is widely considered to be the father of artificial intelligence. But the world wasn't kind to Alan Turing. In 1952, he was arrested and convicted under a British law that prohibited "acts of gross indecency between men, in public or private."
In 1936, a young Alan Turing devised a machine that would ultimately change the world. You're staring at it right now--except Turing's "universal machine" was much, much simpler and totally imaginary. Nonetheless, he proved that with just a few simple ingredients, the machine could compute any mathematical problem that a human could compute.

Mar 19 2012, 23 min, Radiolab

Turing, Alan M.

Enigma code, Turing machine, obituary

Link

The Turing Test

"The Turing test measures the performance of an allegedly intelligent machine against that of a human being, arguably the best and only standard for intelligent behavior.... The Turing test, in spite of its intuitive appeal, is vulnerable to a number of justifiable criticisms. One of the most important of these is aimed at its bias toward purely symbolic problem-solving tasks. It does not test abilities requiring perceptual skill or manual dexterity, even though these are important components of human intelligence. Conversely, it is sometimes suggested that the Turing test needlessly constrains machine intelligence to fit a human mold. Perhaps machine intelligence is simply different from human intelligence and trying to evaluate it in human terms is a fundamental mistake. Do we really wish a machine would do mathematics as slowly and inaccurately as a human?"
From Chapter One of George F. Luger's textbook, Artificial Intelligence: Structures and Strategies for Complex Problem Solving, 5th Edition (Addison-Wesley; 2005).

By George F. Luger, 2005

Publication

Computing machinery and intelligence

An excellent place to start. In this article, Turing not only proposes the Imitation Game in its original form, but addresses nine different arguments against AI, including Goedel's theorem and consciousness. Several recent arguments against AI are variations on the ones Turing enumerates.

I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms "machine" and "think." The definitions might be framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of the words, but this attitude is dangerous....The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we call the "imitation game."

By Turing, A. M., 1950

classic, imitation game

Link

Definition of Turing Test

"The Turing test is a behavioural approach to determining whether or not a system is intelligent. It was originally proposed by mathematician Alan Turing, one of the founding figures in computing. Turing argued in a 1950 paper that conversation was the key to judging intelligence. In the Turing test, a judge has conversations (via teletype) with two systems, one human, the other a machine. The conversations can be about anything, and proceed for a set period of time (e.g., an hour). If, at the end of this time, the judge cannot distinguish the machine from the human on the basis of the conversation, then Turing argued that we would have to say that the machine was intelligent."

By Dr. Michael Dawson and Dr. David Medler (Maintainers)

Link

The Turing Test

"The phrase 'The Turing Test' is most properly used to refer to a proposal made by Turing (1950) as a way of dealing with the question whether machines can think.... The phrase 'The Turing Test' is sometimes used more generally to refer to some kinds of behavioural tests for the presence of mind, or thought, or intelligence in putatively minded entities. So, for example, it is sometimes suggested that The Turing Test is prefigured in Descartes' Discourse on the Method. (Copeland (2000:527) finds an anticipation of the test in the 1668 writings of the Cartesian de Cordemoy. Gunderson (1964) provides an early instance of those who find that Turing's work is foreshadowed in the work of Descartes.)... There are many different objections to The Turing Test which have surfaced in the literature during the past fifty years, but which we have not yet discussed. We cannot hope to canvass all of these objections here. However, there is one argument---Searle's 'Chinese Room' argument---that is mentioned so often in connection with the Turing Test that we feel obliged to end with some discussion of it."

By Graham Oppy David Dowe

General Readings

Publication

Turing Test Prize Has Two Winners

The day we can?t tell the difference between a human and robot just got a little bit closer. A Turing Test?of sorts has been put to humans to see if they could differentiate between their fellow human and non-human combatants in a first-person shooter game.

The contest, conceived of and organized by Philip Hingston, Associate Professor of Computer Science at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia, puts human and computer players on the battlefields of the first-person shooter game UT2004. After a few rounds of combat, the humans have to decide which players are human and which are bots. This year, 100 years after Turing’s birth, not one but two bots achieved humanness.

Oct 8 2012, By Murray, Peter

challenge

AI in the News

Alan Turing and his machines - fresh insights into the enigma

"It is fitting that the greatest code-breaker of World War Two remains a riddle a hundred years after his birth. Alan Turing, the brilliant, maverick mathematician, widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, invented an electromagnetic machine called the 'bombe' which formed the basis for deciphering Germany’s Enigma codes."

Jun 14 2012, By Matilda Battersby

Publication

Turing at 100

"Alan Turing, computer pioneer, wartime code-breaker and polymath, was born in London on 23 June 1912. But for injury, he would probably have joined the British Olympic team for the London games of 1948. (His personal best marathon time of 2 hours and 46 minutes was barely 11 minutes behind the gold medallist that year.) Yet, 100 years and one month after his birth, when the Olympics will return to the city, no official celebration of the connection is planned. An opportunity to bring an intellectual giant — and science itself — to the attention of the international public will be missed."

Feb 23 2012

Publication

Turing's Enduring Importance

The path computing has taken wasn’t inevitable. Even today’s machines rely on a seminal insight from the scientist who cracked Nazi Germany’s codes.

"When Alan Turing was born 100 years ago, on June 23, 1912, a computer was not a thing—it was a person. Computers, most of whom were women, were hired to perform repetitive calculations for hours on end. The practice dated back to the 1750s, when Alexis-Claude Clairaut recruited two fellow astronomers to help him plot the orbit of Halley’s comet. Clairaut’s approach was to slice time into segments and, using Newton’s laws, calculate the changes to the comet’s position as it passed Jupiter and Saturn. The team worked for five months, repeating the process again and again as they slowly plotted the course of the celestial bodies."

Feb 8 2012, By Simson L. Garfinkel

AI in the News

Mind vs. Machine

In the race to build computers that can think like humans, the proving ground is the Turing Test—an annual battle between the world’s most advanced artificial-intelligence programs and ordinary people. The objective? To find out whether a computer can act “more human” than a person. In his own quest to beat the machines, the author discovers that the march of technology isn’t just changing how we live, it’s raising new questions about what it means to be human. Author's reflections on being named "most human human" in the Sept. 2009 Loebner Prize competition.

By Christian, Brian, 2011

Loebner, Turing Test, chatbot

Publication

The Trouble with the Turing Test

The New Atlantis Number 11, Winter 2006, pp. 42-63. This article is an abridged version of a paper---complete with footnotes---which can be accessed from the [articles section of the author's website.] "[W]hat Turing grasped better than most of his followers is that the characteristic sign of the ability to think is not giving correct answers, but responsive ones---replies that show an understanding of the remarks that prompted them. If we are to regard an interlocutor as a thinking being, his responses need to be autonomous; to think is to think for yourself. The belief that a hidden entity is thinking depends heavily on the words he addresses to us being not re-hashings of the words we just said to him, but words we did not use or think of ourselves---words that are not derivative but original.... The complicated relationship between the field of AI and Turingrsquo;s legacy goes back to the beginning."

By Mark Halpern, 2006

News

AI in the News

Alan Turing and his machines - fresh insights into the enigma

"It is fitting that the greatest code-breaker of World War Two remains a riddle a hundred years after his birth. Alan Turing, the brilliant, maverick mathematician, widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, invented an electromagnetic machine called the 'bombe' which formed the basis for deciphering Germany’s Enigma codes."

Jun 14 2012, By Matilda Battersby

AI in the News

The Most Human Human: a Defence of Humanity in the Age of the Computer By Brian Christian

Giving the reader a thorough grounding in the complex history of artificial intelligence along with entertaining digressions on video games, speed-dating and much else, The Most Human Human is an invaluable sourcebook on computing in modern-day life. It is also a personal narrative, however, in which Christian recounts his participation in the Loebner Prize.... Christian is surely right in arguing that the rise of computers need not erode the human sense of self. Instead, the result may be to bring into clearer focus what it is that makes us different from machines. If history is any guide, however, human beings do not greatly cherish the features that truly make them what they are - finite creatures, with limited abilities.

May 12 2011

AI in the News

Almost human: Interview with a chatbot

Every year the Loebner Prize for artificial intelligence is awarded to the chatbot software able to converse most like a human.
It is a version of the Turing test, proposed in 1950 by Alan Turing. A program passes when a human judge cannot tell that they are talking to a machine.
No machine has yet passed. But the winner of the Loebner Prize at the weekend - Elbot, brainchild of Fred Roberts at Artificial Solutions in Germany - came close, according to the contest's rather generous rules.
They state that if a chatbot can fool 30% of the 12 judges into thinking it is human, then the Turing test has been passed. Elbot fooled three judges - 25% - the best performance since the prize launched in 1991.

Oct 13 2008

AI in the News

Mind vs. Machine

In the race to build computers that can think like humans, the proving ground is the Turing Test—an annual battle between the world’s most advanced artificial-intelligence programs and ordinary people. The objective? To find out whether a computer can act “more human” than a person. In his own quest to beat the machines, the author discovers that the march of technology isn’t just changing how we live, it’s raising new questions about what it means to be human. Author's reflections on being named "most human human" in the Sept. 2009 Loebner Prize competition.

By Christian, Brian, 2011

Loebner, Turing Test, chatbot

Videos

Video

Creativity: The Mind, Machines, and Mathematics: Public Debate

Rodney Brooks moderates this debate between Ray Kurzweil and David Gelernter. From MIT World. "About the lecture: :Two of the sharpest minds in the computing arena spar gamely, but neither scores a knockdown in one of the oldest debates around: whether machines may someday achieve consciousness. (NB: Viewers may wish to brush up on the work of computer pioneer Alan Turing and philosopher John Searle in preparation for this video.)"

60 min, 2006, MIT

Podcasts

Podcast

The Turing Problem

100 years ago this year, the man who first conceived of the computer age was born. His name was Alan Turing. He was also a math genius, a hero of World War II and he is widely considered to be the father of artificial intelligence. But the world wasn't kind to Alan Turing. In 1952, he was arrested and convicted under a British law that prohibited "acts of gross indecency between men, in public or private."
In 1936, a young Alan Turing devised a machine that would ultimately change the world. You're staring at it right now--except Turing's "universal machine" was much, much simpler and totally imaginary. Nonetheless, he proved that with just a few simple ingredients, the machine could compute any mathematical problem that a human could compute.

Mar 19 2012, 23 min, Radiolab

Turing, Alan M.

Enigma code, Turing machine, obituary

Podcast

Talking to Machines

This hour of Radiolab, Jad and Robert meet humans and robots who are trying to connect, and blur the line.
We begin with a love story--from a man who unwittingly fell in love with a chatbot on an online dating site. Then, we encounter a robot therapist whose inventor became so unnerved by its success that he pulled the plug. And we talk to the man who coded Cleverbot, a software program that learns from every new line of conversation it receives...and that's chatting with more than 3 million humans each month. Then, five intrepid kids help us test a hypothesis about a toy designed to push our buttons, and play on our human empathy. And we meet a robot built to be so sentient that its creators hope it will one day have a consciousness, and a life, all its own.

May 21 2011, 60 min, Radiolab

Bina48, Cleverbot, Furbies

Classic Articles & Books

Publication

Rule-Based Expert Systems: The MYCIN Experiments of the Stanford Heuristic Programming Project

Artificial intelligence, or AI, is largely an experimental science—at least as much progress has been made by building and analyzing programs as by examining theoretical questions. MYCIN is one of several well-known programs that embody some intelligence and provide data on the extent to which intelligent behavior can be programmed. As with other AI programs, its development was slow and not always in a forward direction. But we feel we learned some useful lessons in the course of nearly a decade of work on MYCIN and related programs. In this book we share the results of many experiments performed in that time, and we try to paint a coherent picture of the work. The book is intended to be a critical analysis of several pieces of related research, performed by a large number of scientists. We believe that the whole field of AI will benefit from such attempts to take a detailed retrospective look at experiments, for in this way the scientific foundations of the field will gradually be defined. It is for all these reasons that we have prepared this analysis of the MYCIN experiments.

Foreword
Allen Newell

Part One: Background

Chapter 1—The Context of the MYCIN Experiments

Chapter 2—The Origin of Rule-Based Systems in AI
Randall Davis and Jonathan J. King

Part Two: Using Rules

Chapter 3—The Evolution of MYCIN’s Rule Form

Chapter 4—The Structure of the MYCIN System
William van Melle

Chapter 5—Details of the Consultation System
Edward H. Shortliffe

Chapter 6—Details of the Revised Therapy Algorithm
William J. Clancey

Part Three: Building a Knowledge Base

Chapter 7—Knowledge Engineering

Chapter 8—Completeness and Consistency in a Rule-Based System
Motoi Suwa, A. Carlisle Scott, and Edward H. Shortliffe

Chapter 9—Interactive Transfer of Expertise
Randall Davis

By Buchanan, Bruce G. and Edward H. Shortliffe (Editors), 1984

classic, collection, mycin

Publication

Computing machinery and intelligence

An excellent place to start. In this article, Turing not only proposes the Imitation Game in its original form, but addresses nine different arguments against AI, including Goedel's theorem and consciousness. Several recent arguments against AI are variations on the ones Turing enumerates.

I propose to consider the question, "Can machines think?" This should begin with definitions of the meaning of the terms "machine" and "think." The definitions might be framed so as to reflect so far as possible the normal use of the words, but this attitude is dangerous....The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we call the "imitation game."

By Turing, A. M., 1950

classic, imitation game

Publication

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid

By Hofstadter, D. , 1979

classic

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