[EAS]Turing Test

pjk pjk at design.eng.yale.edu
Fri Nov 22 23:20:37 EST 2002


Subject:   Turing Test

Dear Colleagues -

As man and machine intelligence get closer, with movement on both
sides, this test for artificial intelligence grows in interest. 

Note the Loebner Prize, an annual competition held in October
<http://www.loebner-atlanta.org/loebner_rules.html> that implements
the Turing Test. This years's winner "Ella" can be tried online at
<http://www.ellaz.com/>. (If you have a slow network connection, use
the Loebner version.)

    --PJK

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(from http://scout.wisc.edu/nsdl-reports/met/2002/met-021122.html)

The Turing Test

1. Alan Mathison Turing
http://turnbull.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/%7Ehistory/Mathematicians/Turing.html

2. The Turing Test and Intelligence
http://www.abelard.org/turing/tur-hi.htm

3. The Turing Test Page [.pdf, .ps]
http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~asaygin/tt/ttest.html

4. Rules and Technical Specifications
http://www.loebner-atlanta.org/loebner_rules.html

5. EllaZ - Artful Intelligence
http://www.ellaz.com/

6. The Blurring Test - Mr. Mind [Flash]
http://www.mrmind.com/mrmind3

7. Mind as Space [.pdf]
http://www.mindpixel.com/PDF/mindasspace.pdf

8. Acquiring Word-Meaning Mappings for Natural Language Interfaces
[.pdf]
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/ml/papers/wolfie-jair-submitted-02.pdf

A man before his time, Alan Mathison Turing is arguably one of the
most recognized mathematicians of the 20th century. In 1950, he
published a paper that, to this day, sets the standard for
artificial intelligence. He proposed a way to determine if a machine
has intelligence, and this is now called the Turing Test.

In his 41-year life, Turing accomplished a great deal as a
mathematician. Bordering on many philosophical issues, his work is
recounted in this online biography (1). A very good introduction to
the Turing Test is given on this site (2). The text of the original
paper written by Turing is provided, as well as an original take on
its implications. Another paper about the Turing Test can be
downloaded here (3), but it looks at the test from 50 years after it
was first published. The author gives an interesting retrospective
on what has transpired since Turing formed his ideas and sets the
stage for future work.

The Loebner Prize is an annual competition that implements the
Turing Test. It involves a panel of judges who question an entity
over a computer terminal. The entity can be either human or a
computer program, and it is up to the judges to decide who is not
human. The program that gives the most human-like responses wins the
contest. If a program can ever be indistinguishable from a human and
manages to trick the judges, a grand prize will be awarded (although
this has not yet happened). To read the rules of the competition,
visit the Web site of the 2002 Loebner Prize (4), which was held on
October 12, 2002. The contest's winning program was dubbed Ella, and
an online version of the program can be tried at this site (5).
Ella's responses are usually humorous, and it is surprising how
realistic they are. A similar interactive utility is called Mr. Mind
(6), but it reverses the roles. The user is asked to prove to Mr.
Mind that he/she is human. By taking this perspective, it is quickly
realized how difficult it must be for a computer to respond like a
human. One chapter of a book that is scheduled to be published in
2003 is given on the Mindpixel Web site (7). It argues that a
lifetime of human experiences is necessary for a computer to pass
the Turing Test, but this can be approximated by a large collection
of submissions contributed by the public over the Internet. This,
incidentally, is the goal of the Mindpixel Digital Mind Modeling
Project. Natural language processing is one important factor for
computers to understand, and glean meaning from, human dialog. A
research paper that was recently included in the Journal of
Artificial Intelligence Research can be viewed at this site (8).




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