Captain Cyborg to chew the fat with Ultra Hal
Reading uni hosts Turing Test contenders
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
Reading Uni's cybernetic media strumpet Kev "Captain Cyborg" Warwick is poised to put six computer programmes to ultimate test - that devised by Alan Turing in which the machine must engage in convincingly human banter, thereby heralding "the most significant breakthrough in artificial intelligence since the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997".
Well, that's how the Observer breathlessly describes the possible outcome of next Sunday's dateline with computing destiny, when university volunteers will chew the fat with Alice, Brother Jerome, Elbot, Eugene Goostman, Jabberwacky and Ultra Hal.
Specifically, the carbon-based "interrogators" will face a computer screen, one half of which will be "operated" by an unseen fellow human, the other by one of the contending programmes. The interrogators will engage in simultaneous five-minute text chats with both, after which they'll have to decide who's who. Warwick reckons a programme "needs only to make 30 per cent or more of the interrogators unsure of its identity to be deemed as having passed the test, based on Turing's own criteria".
Warwick explained: "I would say now that machines are conscious, but in a machine-like way, just as you see a bat or a rat is conscious like a bat or rat, which is different from a human. I think the reason Alan Turing set this game up was that maybe to him consciousness was not that important; it's more the appearance of it, and this test is an important aspect of appearance."
At stake is not just a huge evolutionary leap in machine conciousness, whereby your PC suddenly acquires self-awareness and then locks you out of your flat, refusing to open the door while declaring "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that", but also "an 18-carat gold medal and $100,000 offered by the Loebner Prize in Artificial Intelligence".
And in case you're wondering just how close machines are to achieving human-style intelligence, the Observer concludes by inviting readers to decide which of two Warwick conversations is with a human, and which with an "artificial conversational entity". It's a tricky one, and no messing... ®
Bootnote
Thanks to Andrew Macdonald for the tip-off.
COMMENTS
AI's, Stupidity, and Sarah Palin
Actually, do I really need to say anything more?
--Glenn
A patriotic dumb-****. Of course I'd vote for her, even though she'd "council" a twelve-year-old raped by her father to be "pro-life"...after having made abortion illegal. I can picture it. "Oh, my dear, you should have taken my advice. Now you'll have to spend the rest of your life in prison for murder. Don't you know to love your father?"
...actually, Artificial Un-intelligence
(Paris: "Wow, she's really stupid.")
Chip Vivant: My Rejected Loebner Prize 2008 Entry
Hi All,
For those of you who are interested, here's a link to my rejected Loebner Prize 2008 Entry. His name is Chip Vivant:
http://www.chipvivant.com/
And here is a link to an article I wrote about my experiences entering this contest this year:
http://www.chipvivant.com/lpc2008.htm
One of the contest organizers said that I should request the judges' feedback after the completion of the contest, so I'm still trying to keep an open mind. (It was my first-time entry and there were a lot of bugs initially.)
Anyway, I'd be interested in your feedback and reactions. Type "!Feedback <your text here>" when talking to Chip to flag a message as feedback for me.
@Andy H
I believe that the appropriate "twatdangle" for the capatin is indeed "cyberspaz".
Mines the one with the non sentient electronics
What you need to know about cloud backup
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Customer Success Testimonial: Recovery is Everything
Cloud storage: Lower cost and increase uptime
SaaS data loss: The problem you didn’t know you had
