Dr Ayesh maintains that the Turing Test does not consider learning
Is it time for the Turing Test to retire?
/v3-uk/opinion/1995525/is-turing-test-retire
08 Jul 2009, Dr Aladdin Ayesh , V3
Next year marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Alan Turing's paper that led to the famous Turing Test.
Back in 1950, Turing proposed that a machine can demonstrate and be proven to possess true intelligence through a simple test of conversation, in which a human user converses blindly with two entities: a machine and another human. If that user could not tell the difference between the two entities, the machine is considered to be 'intelligent'.
The test served as a benchmark of artificial intelligence (AI) for years, but new advances in cognitive sciences and consciousness studies compel us to revisit it.
During a debate at the conference of the Society for the Study of Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour it became clear that, while the Turing Test has served us well in driving AI research forward, it would not serve as a full test of intelligence.
A simple example is that the test does not consider learning, which is an important element of intelligence demonstrated by both humans and animals.
In my opinion, there is a fundamental misconception in the test. It requires a human examiner to have a conversation with two unseen entities. One of these entities is a human while the other is the machine to be tested.
One of the conversation topics that we can trap a machine with is the weather. Assume that we asked 'how is the weather outside?' and got one of the following as an answer:
'It is 21 degrees with northerly wind speed of five knots.'
'It is lovely weather today [do you not like it sunny?]' (The actual weather
outside is heavy rain.)
'I do not like the weather in England. How do you cope with it?'
Now, which one do we think is a human answer and which one is a machine's? The first answer gives an impression of a machine with good weather sensors, but could it not be a human with a weather station stating simple facts?
The last one could be a person who is not from England, but could it not also be a machine programmed with preset answers to divert topics in a direction in which it can converse?
The second answer is the interesting one. The first part of the answer gives the impression of a machine, but when the optional part is added, it gives the sense of cynicism that one is likely to associate with a human rather than a pattern-matching machine. These cases show the flaws in the Turing Test argument, and return us to the question of what does it test?
For an intelligent machine to pass the test it has to be able to pretend to be human. This requires that the machine is conscious of the fact that it is a machine, it is conscious of the fact the test requires it to come across as human, it is conscious of time and visual limitation, and finally it is conscious of what makes a human comes across as human, i.e. human quirkiness. After all, we would be much quicker to accept a robot as intelligent if it could hold a light-hearted conversation about football.
In my opinion, the Turing Test does not test intelligence, or at least not solely so. It tests consciousness, self-awareness and the ability to lie. The last is the most important, because the ability to lie is a distinctively human characteristic associated with our ability to create from imagination.
A conscious, creative machine with imagination is a very interesting machine, but are these pre-requisites of intelligence?
A symposium to be held at the 2010 Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Behaviour conference aims to answer this question, among others, in the search for a modern alternative to the Turing Test.
A good reading list on the Turing Test and associated topics can be found here.
Dr Aladdin Ayesh is a senior lecturer in the Informatics Department at De Montfort University and a member of the Centre for Computational Intelligence.
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Do you agree?
Turing Test? A myth to explode...
The problem lies in the original concept: Alan Turing was obsessed with the idea that a computer could be built to be human, not just seem human. He was hoping for 'love' and other feelings to be demonstrated by hardware.
My generation of IT pros have been brought up to persuade other non-IT professionals that the 'computer' (in whatever incarnation) is an 'assistant' sitting in the corner to do the drudgery work. Hark back to Victorian England when the 'tweenie' and 'boot boy' fulfilled a similar role, but were barely considered human, let alone intelligent!
Forget the Turing test, it is irrelevant to the task of providing a worker with the tool they need to do their daya to day tasks.
Posted by Steve Atkinson, 08 Jul 2009
The test was always flawed
I've always been highly sceptical of the validity of the Turing test, if only because it's been possible for many years to make computer programs, such as Eliza, simulate human responses with an increasing degree of sophistication without actually possessing any innate intelligence at all. The increasing necessity to think up ever more arcane "traps" for clever (but not intelligent) software is an endless arms race. I'm not totally sure there really is a simple test you can apply to determine machine intelligence (however you care to define this loose term), especially in today's networked world where your target can always "phone a friend" if stumped for an answer.
Posted by Jack Kirwan, 08 Jul 2009
We're still a long way off - so why retire a test yet to be tested?
It might be 2009 but we're no closer to HAL in 2001 A Space Odyssey than we were when that book was written.
If HAL were around today, though, it would fly through the Turing test. A better test might then need to be written - one that would weed out the puny humans against the might computer!
As it is, no-one is fooled for an instance that a computer can emulate human conversation yet we're busy postulating the need for new tests well before the need arises.
Let's get the damn computers intelligent before we waste (more) time on this topic!
Posted by Ralph S Bacon, 08 Jul 2009
The difference between pouring concrete and fighting Israel
Yes, I think Turing should be abolished. There are many levels of understanding. Translation I believe is an indication of understanding.
Google translated "wsT jw AlmErkp or ??? ?? ??????? " as "central air battle". Correct is "the climatic environmental battle. This was a speech by Sadat on the Aswan dam.
This is clearly non human as a human would understand that you were not building Aswan with fighter planes.
Turing entries seem to me to convince only true believers.
Posted by Ian Parker, 09 Jul 2009
No good definition
Intelligence often seems to be effectively defined as "what computers can't do yet"! Every time they do something that "only humans could do", that something is declared not a mark of intelligence after all. It seems they will never be allowed to be called intelligent.
I used to think that passing the Turing Test was a sufficient but not a necessary test, e.g., there is surely no need to have human quirks or mannerisms that would be a give away. (The computer terminal interface only removes some non-essential differences.) However, as pointed out, the TT does not ensure that leaning, etc. would be tested, so it is not a sufficient test either. Learning, etc. could be included in the TT, but it is not clear how to specify such things. (They need to be open-ended enough to ensure the the subject is not just good at a few specific tasks, but that inevitably makes specification vague.) Also, how do you specify the human control, e.g., s/he must not be too dumb?
Posted by John Newbury, 09 Jul 2009
Truing, unfortunatly, is irrelevant
To me, the Turing Test (or the annual Loebner Prize) is there to see how well a computer can chat, which seems largely an exercise in text generation, rather than an insight into intelligence. Winograd and Flores, in Understanding Computers and Cognition, summarize that computers are there to enhance communication, not to be the source of intelligence. In roads will be made in the coming years, but while the goal will be described as intelligence, by those with something to sell, the destination will be a digital butler, rather than a digital lover.
Posted by Martin Wheatman, 11 Jul 2009
Do machines need to fake humanity?
I think it would be a good thing if machines could communicate intelligently with human beings in 'natural language'. However, in order to do so I do not believe that they need to convince us that they are human; and it might be better if they did not.
Posted by Ariadne Tampion, 12 Jul 2009
Human Intelligence was not born in a day
Intelligence can be defined as the ability to learn, the ability to analyze the given situation and the ability to use the knowledge available/ accumulated over time.
If a machine has to replace/ imitate a human to the closest, it needs to be able to perform all of the above activities.
The facts on human intelligence are,
1. The human knowledge is accumulated over time.
2. The human behavior varies depending on a known and unknown situation and surroundings.
3. No human is an expert in all subjects.
For a machine to closely imitate a human, it needs to exhibit one or more of the above. Hence the following can be used to classify machine intelligence
1. Rate of knowledge assimilation/ acquisition.
2. Response/ behavior in known and unknown situations.
3. Expertise in the chosen field/ fields.
Turing test definitely does not test all the above capabilities. Hence it cannot be the sole test to test machine intelligence.
Posted by Anand Srinivasaraghavan, 13 Jul 2009
Turing Test 2.0
Hi!
This is my variant of the new test (sorry my bad English):
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fideas4future.info%2F2009%2F06%2F18%2Ftest_tjuringa_2%2F&sl=ru&tl=en&history_state0=
Posted by Yury Smirnov, 25 Sep 2009