daniel bigham.ca

The Turing Test
September 27, 2006

The Turing test is a setup where you have a person sitting at a computer chatting via something like an instant messenger program (like MSN Messenger) with someone at the other end that could either be another person or a computer. The job of the person is to figure out whether what they're chatting with is a person or a computer. If it is a computer and they can tell, then the computer has failed the Turing test. Designing AI to pass the Turing Test is one of the holy grails of computer science.

My guess is that the first AI to pass this test will be more akin to a magician pulling off an amazing feat, and less about creating a machine that truly does what the Turing test is supposed to test for: AI with roughly the same intelligence as a human mind. It would be like a magician who causes someone to disappear, convincing an audience full of guests that he's done the impossible. In reality, what he has done is use smoke and mirrors in a clever way -- he certainly didn't make a person vanish into thin air. And so passing the Turing test becomes a game of deceit; creating a facade that fools the observer.

This doesn't make the Turing Test an unworthy pursuit, and no doubt the machine will have to be mighty clever, but I think we need to realize that the first AI to pass it may not be as advanced as we would suppose.

Link: BBC: George, an online robot breaking new ground

Update: July 8, 2008: To be fair, I think it depends on how you define the Turing test. If the test is passed the first time any human being thinks they're chatting with a person when in reality they're chatting with an AI, then I think my above observation is a good one. (And perhaps there have already been people who have been fooled) But if you define passing the test to involve fooling people who are trained at interrogating AIs with a > 90% success ratio, then I think it's going to take a lot more than smoke and mirrors.

Communication
July 13, 2006

I had a bit of an epiphany the other day about communication -- that while much is communicated with the literal word, much much more is communicated non-verbally, symbolically, etc. Not that this is a new idea: I recall reading in my psychology textbook that much of communication is non-verbal, but there's a difference in reading a fact versus having the "aha" moment of actually seeing the truth of something for yourself. An example: When someone asks "How are you?", your response "Good, how are you?" communicates most by how you say it and by how you hold your body -- the literal text is often just a placeholder.

Aside from body language, our behavior in general communicates to those around us -- it communicates who we are, what is important to us, etc. From the standpoint of our relationships, our behavior hints to others how important they are to us, our oppinions about them, etc.

I find this realm of thought fascinating. I think much could be learned by understanding some of the things we are perhaps communicating unconciously today. What do these things tell us about ourselves?

Taking these ideas one step further, it is interesting to try looking at everything as a kind of communication. How about our houses? Do they communicate? Well, don't we all try to set up our surroundings to echo beauty and order? A home communicates things about its owners. Or how about nature. Does it communicate? Sure, to many people it reflects the magesty of its creator; a way for God to communicate to us about himself.

Thinking some more about Christian theology, a fascinating picture comes to mind: God breathing love into creation and longing for society / the world to echo back "LOVE!" by how we treat one another on a local and global scale; that echo being a profound communication from mankind back to God.

The eb and flow of personal motivation
June 29, 2006

I'm intrigued how my personal motivation to accomplish things has a real eb and flow. Some weeks/months I wake up at 6:30 ready to get going, others I struggle to pull myself out of bed in time to get to work for 9:00. It's definately not just how much sleep I've been getting -- there's some deeper psychological component. What causes this?

older >>