Study exposes major flaw in classic artificial intelligence test

A serious problem in the Turing test for computer intelligence is exposed in a study published in the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence. If a machine were to'take the Fifth Amendment' – that is, exercise the right to remain silent throughout the test – it could, potentially, pass the test and thus be regarded as a thinking entity, authors Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah of Coventry University argue. However, if this is the case, any silent entity could pass the test, even if it were clearly incapable of thought. The test, devised in 1950 by pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, assesses a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from that of a human. Also known as the'imitation game', it requires a human judge to converse with two hidden entities, a human and a machine, and then determine which is which.