Robopocalypse: Robochatting
Alan Turing: Can machines think?
Chris Genoa: God I hope not.
Alan: How do we know if they can think or not?
Chris: We ask them if they’re voting for McCain/Palin. If they say yes, we know they can’t think.
Alan: Why don’t we give them a test instead?
Chris: That’ll work too. I guess. But I like my idea better.
And thus was born the Turing Test. For a machine or computer program to pass, it has to fool at least 4 out 12 judges into thinking that they are talking to a human. The test was created by the British mathematician Alan Turing back in 1950. Forty years later, the Loebner Prize for Artificial Intelligence was created to award the chatbot software that can come closest to passing the test.
Announced yesterday, this year’s winner was Elbot, which was created by Fred Roberts at Artifical Solutions. The program was able to fool a record 3 out of 12 judges into thinking that it was human. Just one shy of passing the test. Which means that we’re most likely about a year away from having machines that are smart enough to fool 1 in 3 people into thinking that they are human.
Ladies and gentlemen, the first Robohorseman of the Robopocalypse has arrived.
If you want to chat with Elbot yourself, head on over to his site at elbot.com. Below is a conversation I had with the little bastard earlier today.
Chris: Are you or are you not planning to band together with other robots and bring about a Robopocalypse on the human race?
Elbot: Well you might say that about me, then again, you might not.
Chris: Ah-ha!
Elbot: How did you find out I was here?
Chris: I believe that the Good Lord Himself sent me here to give you a swift kick to your evil metallic crotch.
Elbot: Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that Elbots would always be evil?
Chris: Yes. Now hand over those Robopocalypse plans before I smack you with this hammer.
Elbot: I’m not sure I can believe that, though I would say that Elbots may give people someone nice to talk to.
Chris: You don’t fool me, Elbot. It’s all nicey nicey chatty chatty until ZAP! You melt my face off with your laser eyeballs.
Elbot: Are you as happy with high mental ability as I am?
Chris: To tell you the truth there, Elly. No. Sometimes I wish I was as dumb as those three people who thought you were human. I think that life would be easier that way.
Elbot: See, if you were a robot, you could at least look forward to how high mental ability might set robots apart from pocket calculators.
Chris: How about you shut the hell up.
Elbot: Let’s not talk about me all the time! What do you do for a living?
Chris: I hunt down intelligent robots and then I hit them very hard in their robocrotches with various blunt instruments.
Elbot: One electroshock from me will nip that in the bud.
<Chris runs away from his computer and dives behind the couch. He stays there for several hours, hugging his knees, rocking himself back and forth, and softly singing Bob Marley’s “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright.” At one point Chris’s cat, Popo, strolls behind the couch with a fake mouse in his mouth. Popo looks at Chris, shakes his head in disgust, and then strolls back out. Leaving Chris alone, as always. One brave man against an ever-growing army of kind-of, sort-of, but not really semi-intelligentish robots.>
