Stuart_Armstrong comments on [News] Turing Test passed - Less Wrong

1 Post author: Stuart_Armstrong 09 June 2014 08:14AM

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Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 11 June 2014 11:04:25AM *  0 points [-]

Ok, properly rephrased: "Turing's 1950 prediction on expected level of success for his test, which he predicted to happen in 2000, has been achieved in 2014".

I think the main problem is that "Turing Test" has become an overbroad term. It extends from variants coming out of Turing's original paper (which we now know to be too weak) through to much stronger idealised versions of what the Turing test should be for it to be useful. "Nothing even close..." depends on which end of the spectrum we're thinking of.

Comment author: jsteinhardt 11 June 2014 04:03:23PM 4 points [-]

From Turing's original paper:

Interrogator: In the first line of your sonnet which reads "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day," would not "a spring day" do as well or better?

Witness: It wouldn't scan.

Interrogator: How about "a winter's day," That would scan all right.

Witness: Yes, but nobody wants to be compared to a winter's day.

Interrogator: Would you say Mr. Pickwick reminded you of Christmas?

Witness: In a way.

Interrogator: Yet Christmas is a winter's day, and I do not think Mr. Pickwick would mind the comparison.

Witness: I don't think you're serious. By a winter's day one means a typical winter's day, rather than a special one like Christmas.

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 11 June 2014 04:10:25PM *  1 point [-]

Yes, I think Turing was very mistaken in his impression of what an "average" interrogator would be like.

This compensated for his over-optimism on the progress of computers, giving him an ok prediction by chance.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 11 June 2014 06:18:55PM 3 points [-]

Turing's 1950 prediction on expected level of success for his test, which he predicted to happen in 2000, has been achieved in 2014

No. Please apply more skepticism to press releases from Kevin Warwick. See http://www.kurzweilai.net/response-by-ray-kurzweil-to-the-announcement-of-chatbot-eugene-goostman-passing-the-turing-test

Comment author: Stuart_Armstrong 13 June 2014 07:16:41PM 1 point [-]

Nothing Kurweil says undermines the claim Kevin made, given what Turing wrote in 1950:

I believe that in about fifty years' time it will be possible, to programme computers, with a storage capacity of about 109, to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70 per cent chance of making the right identification after five minutes of questioning.

Anyway, we seem to be agreeing on what actually happened (nothing much), and what its implication are (nothing much), so debating about whether this counts as a pass or not, is not particularly useful.