This 'major flaw' has been discovered in the 66-year-old Turing test

The Turing test, developed by legendary computer scientist Alan Turing and used to test the artificial intelligence of computers, has a major flaw. A new study, published in the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence, points out that the test, which was devised in the 1950s, could be successfully passed if the computer pleaded the Fifth Amendment and remained silent. Authors Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah from Coventry University argue that a machine could plausibly pass the test by saying very little, or nothing at all. Previous attempts at defeating the Turing test have seen computers pretend to be children, but no matter how great their general knowledge, they are often unable to convince a human interacting with them (over typed messages) that they are also a human. A critical point raised by the study is how the Turing test is based around a machine being discovered as a human based on what it does wrong, rather than what it does right.