2015-05-21 – We all know about the Turing Test, don’t we?

If you are not sure, let me tell you what it is. It is a test of a machine’s intelligence devised by Alan Turing. It consists of a human having a conversation with the machine. If the human is fooled into thinking that the machine is human, it’s deemed intelligent. Apparently, there is no requirement to qualify the human tester.

I’m not exactly sure why anyone would do this.

I mean, do we have tests to determine whether other sorts of objects are intelligent. Say it’s your shoe. The conversation could go something like this:

You: “Hello, shoe.”

Shoe: [Silence.]

You: “Cat got your tongue?”

Shoe: [Silence.]

You: “You know, if you don’t respond, you fail the Turing test.”

Shoe: [Silence.]

You: “Well, I don’t have all day. That’s it.”

Shoe: [Thinking to itself: You walk on me all day. I’m not talking to you. I don’t care about some dumb Turing test.]

But no. We don’t care about random objects being able to talk with us. We don’t even do this with our pets, even though it is self-evident that they are intelligent. They get us to feed and house them without having to provide any services in return.

#turingtest