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Turing Test Success

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Re: Turing Test Success

#111

Post by ghshephard »

codeulike wrote: post #109
ghshephard wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that was an obvious example of a computer system, as it was a labored and overly detailed description. I would have immediately flagged it as a computer system, and not a human.

Well OK, but if you had a conversation like that with a bot, would you be prepared to consider the bot as being conscious? Thats the deeper question that the Turing Test is really about, rather than human/not human.

You know - Marc Andreessen was tweeting about this today - and he held the same view as you. But, every book I've read on Turing, and every article I've read on the Turing tests suggests that the entire idea behind the turing test was to not get caught up on concepts such as "thinking" or "intelligence" - but to just posit a test to see if a machine could imitate thinking behavior. This then, provides a nice unambiguous target for research and development, without worrying about being caught up in the semantics of the conversation.

Re: Turing Test Success

#112

Post by andreasvc »

Sami_Lehtinen wrote: post #107
andreasvc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wording of your comment reveals your bias towards the other school of thought, Strong AI. But what is "true" intelligence? I don't think anyone has a clear definition of this, and in reality it's all just a philosophical quagmire. An important distinction is whether mimicry is equivalent to "true" intelligence, or whether it should be treated as such, barring a better litmus test. With that in mind, taking a meth…

Strong AI wouldn't make same silly mistakes which people make all the time. So would the Strong AI need to be smart enough to play dumb to fool people? Because people are illogical, smart machines surely wouldn't be?

A Strong AI is by definition more intelligent than humans, so it could also deceive. No need to "be illogical", just playing along. In any case it's rather irrelevant, because presumably if there is a Strong AI, it would be so impressive that there is no need for a Turing test to prove it.

Re: Turing Test Success

#113

Post by netcan »

ghshephard wrote: post #111
codeulike wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well OK, but if you had a conversation like that with a bot, would you be prepared to consider the bot as being conscious? Thats the deeper question that the Turing Test is really about, rather than human/not human.

You know - Marc Andreessen was tweeting about this today - and he held the same view as you. But, every book I've read on Turing, and every article I've read on the Turing tests suggests that the entire idea behind the turing test was to not get caught up on concepts such as "thinking" or "intelligence" - but to just posit a test to see if a machine could imitate thinking behavior. This then, provides a nice unambigu…

Perhaps the lesson is that no matter what your starting intention, the rules of a competitive game are going to be optimized for. You might start out with the goal of creating a general test of physical prowess. A 50m sprint, weight lifting contest or even a wrestling match is too specific so you invent a general game where strength, speed, endurance, etc. matter and you call it rugby.

If no one had heard of the rules in advance, rugby would be a pretty decent test of general physical prowess. Maybe not 100% perfect, but out of a population of 1000, the 50 best rugby players would probably match most people's top 50 list of physical specimens well enough.

But, once you have people training and optimizing for it, you find that (a) training for rugby specifically matters. (b) Rugby is optimizing for a particular set of physical characteristics.

Chat bots designed to win the game are basically designed to fool people into thinking that they're human because that's the game. It isn't really a good proxy for consciousness.

Re: Turing Test Success

#114

Post by [deleted] »

ghshephard wrote: post #111
codeulike wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well OK, but if you had a conversation like that with a bot, would you be prepared to consider the bot as being conscious? Thats the deeper question that the Turing Test is really about, rather than human/not human.

You know - Marc Andreessen was tweeting about this today - and he held the same view as you. But, every book I've read on Turing, and every article I've read on the Turing tests suggests that the entire idea behind the turing test was to not get caught up on concepts such as "thinking" or "intelligence" - but to just posit a test to see if a machine could imitate thinking behavior. This then, provides a nice unambigu…

[deleted]

Re: Turing Test Success

#115

Post by DanBC »

Buge wrote: post #47
KwanEsq wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most likely from here: >It will simplify matters for the reader if I explain first my own beliefs in the matter. Consider first the more accurate form of the question. I believe that in about fifty years' time it will be possible, to programme computers, with a storage capacity of about 109, to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70 per cent chance of making…

Is he talking about 109 bits? Because that seems pretty impossible to me.

And don't forget that the word bit was only around two years old at the time the paper was written. (I have no idea when Tukey first suggested it. I'm using Shannon's publication for a date.)

10^9 bits is only (check my math) about 120 MBytes.

So Turing was perhaps a bit optimistic there?

Re: Turing Test Success

#116

Post by codeulike »

netcan wrote: post #113
ghshephard wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know - Marc Andreessen was tweeting about this today - and he held the same view as you. But, every book I've read on Turing, and every article I've read on the Turing tests suggests that the entire idea behind the turing test was to not get caught up on concepts such as "thinking" or "intelligence" - but to just posit a test to see if a machine could imitate thinking behavior. This then, provides a nice unambigu…

Perhaps the lesson is that no matter what your starting intention, the rules of a competitive game are going to be optimized for. You might start out with the goal of creating a general test of physical prowess. A 50m sprint, weight lifting contest or even a wrestling match is too specific so you invent a general game where strength, speed, endurance, etc. matter and you call it rugby. If no one had heard of the rule…

But if I was talking to a bot and it was able to hold a conversation as complex as the one above, for a long time and without glitches etc, I'd be prepared to consider it 'conscious'. You have to consider how difficult it would be to pass a Turing Test _reliably_ with a decent judge who took the conversation in interesting directions.

re: Chat bots designed to win games: Some say that's exactly what we are! - The Social Brain Hypothesis of the evolution of human intelligence suggests that the reason our brains grew so big was that intelligence (via ability to deal with social groups) became a large factor in reproductive success.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_human_intelligence...

Re: Turing Test Success

#117

Post by netcan »

codeulike wrote: post #116
netcan wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the lesson is that no matter what your starting intention, the rules of a competitive game are going to be optimized for. You might start out with the goal of creating a general test of physical prowess. A 50m sprint, weight lifting contest or even a wrestling match is too specific so you invent a general game where strength, speed, endurance, etc. matter and you call it rugby. If no one had heard of the rule…

But if I was talking to a bot and it was able to hold a conversation as complex as the one above, for a long time and without glitches etc, I'd be prepared to consider it 'conscious'. You have to consider how difficult it would be to pass a Turing Test _reliably_ with a decent judge who took the conversation in interesting directions. re: Chat bots designed to win games: Some say that's exactly what we are! - The Soc…

I guess what I am saying is that I think the Turing test was a way to demonstrate an idea without being able to define it specifically.

I think the focus on Turing tests is interesting and has definitely expanded knowledge in this area. But, it is now an area within the search for artificial consciousness. It no longer works as a test for it as it would if a computer just happened to stumble on the test and pass it.

That said, I do thing that where we are visa a vis the Test is a cool benchamark. I would be over the moon if one of the Turing bots got to the point where it could do a job, like being a customer support bot.

Hopefully someplace slightly north of the Turing test goal post there will be commercial goal posts to encourage development, hopefully a conversational user interface. A convincing chatbot as a user interface would present lot of very interesting challenges.

Re: Turing Test Success

#119

Post by pjc50 »

mratzloff wrote: post #14

The Turing Test is a terrible measure of sapience. Generally it involves using "average people", who have been shown time and again to be overly credulous when talking to these bots. If the test is to be used at all, it should consist of computer science experts instead--people familiar with the technology and bot tricks of the trade. That the Turing Test is still used is proof that we still don't understand how to e…

"I know you're artificial--I can see the processes working"

That criterion implies that once we have a much better understanding of the brain that humans might start failing it. What if you have a neuronal tracedump for a person involved in a conversation?

Re: Turing Test Success

#120

Post by codeulike »

netcan wrote: post #117
codeulike wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if I was talking to a bot and it was able to hold a conversation as complex as the one above, for a long time and without glitches etc, I'd be prepared to consider it 'conscious'. You have to consider how difficult it would be to pass a Turing Test _reliably_ with a decent judge who took the conversation in interesting directions. re: Chat bots designed to win games: Some say that's exactly what we are! - The Soc…

I guess what I am saying is that I think the Turing test was a way to demonstrate an idea without being able to define it specifically. I think the focus on Turing tests is interesting and has definitely expanded knowledge in this area. But, it is now an area within the search for artificial consciousness. It no longer works as a test for it as it would if a computer just happened to stumble on the test and pass it.…

Well yes there's kinda two different views of the Turing Test:

1) Consciousness is really hard to define so the Turing Test is a handy workable yardstick that AI can use as a milestone until we get a proper working definition of consciousness

2) (Hard-AI, behaviourist position) Appearing to be conscious and being conscious are the same thing. Hence the Turing Test is about as good a definition of consciousness as we are ever likely to get. Perhaps it could be tightened up a little - insisting on really long conversations with lots of complexity etc. But a good judge running a test over a longish time period would see to that.

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