It's basically a software automaton, not an AI in any way.
Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatbot Eugene Goostman “passing the Turing test”
21–30 of 164 posts
Re: Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatbot Eugene Goostman “passing the Turing test”
#22This is a nicely written and clear explanation of why the announcement by the University of Reading is bullshit. In fact, it is was more than they deserve. Way more. I would suggest shunning them is the right response. The University of Reading is, of course, the august institution behind: http://blog.jgc.org/2010/05/inside-rfid-virus.html http://blog.jgc.org/2006/12/midas-number-or-why-divide-by-ze...
As someone who went to the University of Reading, this is pretty sad to me. I do wish they would stop devaluing my (and my peers') education with this nonsense.
Re: Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatbot Eugene Goostman “passing the Turing test”
#23'Apparently, we have now entered the era of premature announcements of a computer having passed Turing’s eponymous test'
What this Eugene stuff has made me realize is that we need milestones around the Turing test in the pop-science lexicon, rather than just a pass fail. Kurzweil's right, this bot isn't a pass in anything like the spirit of the test. But, getting attention is a good thing. It encourages potential students and engages the public.
Maybe there could be a few variants of the test based on bot age, bot native language, judge age, judge proficiency, etc. These could be scored these by the percentage of judges fooled.
That way a new bot could break a previous record on one or more variant of the test. PR fodder. Legitimate accolades. The headlines could mean something. Fewer cranky nerds.
Kurzweil could do promote this.
Re: Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatbot Eugene Goostman “passing the Turing test”
#24This is a nicely written and clear explanation of why the announcement by the University of Reading is bullshit. In fact, it is was more than they deserve. Way more. I would suggest shunning them is the right response. The University of Reading is, of course, the august institution behind: http://blog.jgc.org/2010/05/inside-rfid-virus.html http://blog.jgc.org/2006/12/midas-number-or-why-divide-by-ze...
I'd be impressed if the entire press release turns out to be the AI
It's the university of Reading after all, that means they must have outsourced the other half. (ok, cheap shot, I just could not resist)
Re: Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatbot Eugene Goostman “passing the Turing test”
#25Kudos to Kurzweil for calling them out. That chatbot doesn't look especially sophisticated.
Re: Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatbot Eugene Goostman “passing the Turing test”
#26'Apparently, we have now entered the era of premature announcements of a computer having passed Turing’s eponymous test' What this Eugene stuff has made me realize is that we need milestones around the Turing test in the pop-science lexicon, rather than just a pass fail. Kurzweil's right, this bot isn't a pass in anything like the spirit of the test. But, getting attention is a good thing. It encourages potential stu…
Getting attention like this is a bad thing. AI has been oversold for decades and stunts like this make real AI efforts look bad. That's one of the reasons I presume Kurzweil is very sharp to denounce this, the last thing we need is a re-run of the AI winter courtesy of some University hot for some attention.
Re: Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatbot Eugene Goostman “passing the Turing test”
#27Warwick is just an attention seeking fruitcake, and an utter embarrassment to the entire British computing ecosystem. This isn't some new revelation either. Quite why he's tolerated at all is beyond me.
Kurzweil is being too kind.
Re: Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatbot Eugene Goostman “passing the Turing test”
#28The answers Ray got back are borderline embarrassing. They're designed to deflect the question by ignoring the request and asking another unrelated question or deflecting by humor. These are common ploys in faking AI chat. Hell, what 13 yo calls himself a "little boy?" I was in 8th grade at 13 and looking forward to high school. I can't imagine calling myself a "little boy" at an age when some of my peers were sexually active.
I think this proves that the Turing Test is more or less crap. Humans, who are easily fooled/socially engineered, can't just decide that "this is AI," like its some kind of American Idol-like contest. There should be some rational metric at work here. A bunch of different tests and human judgement as only one part of the testing suite.
Look at what IBM has been doing with Watson. It may never pass this test, but its probably the closest we have to AI (generalist self-learning system). Maybe this event will be the excuse we finally need to lay Turing's test to bed, permanently.
Re: Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatbot Eugene Goostman “passing the Turing test”
#29Can anyone clarify this for me?
> Professor Warwick claims that the test was “unrestricted.” However, having the chatbot claim to be a 13-year-old child, and one for whom English is not a first language, is effectively a restriction.
Kurzweil seems to say that the bot lying is a restriction, but the Kapor-Kurzweil Turing Test Session rules explicitly allow the bot to lie about who they are[1]:
> Neither the Turing Test Human Foils nor the Computer are required to tell the truth about their histories or other matters. All of the candidates are allowed to respond with fictional histories.
I suppose he's just addressing Professor Warwick's claim. Nevertheless this point doesn't seem to make any difference to what Kurzweil would consider a passing bot and the casual reader is baited into saying "The bot failed because it lied it's history."
[1]: http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-wager-on-the-turing-test-the-rul...
Re: Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatbot Eugene Goostman “passing the Turing test”
#30Between this and Nobel Peace Prize I notice that one after another, the things that used to have some meaning are being bastardized by people looking for attention. Those people are destroying important cultural symbols for five minutes of fame.