The test was introduced by Alan Turing in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence.
"I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'" Because "thinking" is difficult to define.
"Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?"
Philosophical background
The question of whether it is possible for machines to think has a long history.
ELIZA
In 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum created a program which appeared to pass the Turing test. The program, known as ELIZA, worked by examining a user's typed comments for keywords.
If a keyword is found, a rule that transforms the user's comments is applied, and the resulting sentence is returned. If a keyword is not found, ELIZA responds either with a generic riposte or by repeating one of the earlier comments.
In addition, Weizenbaum developed ELIZA to replicate the behaviour of a Rogerian psychotherapist, allowing ELIZA to be "free to assume the pose of knowing almost nothing of the real world."
With these techniques, Weizenbaum's program was able to fool some people into believing that they were talking to a real person, with some subjects being "very hard to convince that ELIZA [...] isnot human."
PARRY
Kenneth Colby created PARRY in 1972, a program described as "ELIZA with attitude". It attempted to model the behaviour of a paranoid schizophrenic, using a similar (if more advanced) approach to that employed by Weizenbaum.
The psychiatrists were able to make the correct identification only 48 percent of the time — a figure consistent with random guessing.
Chatterbots
In the 21st century, versions of these programs (now known as "chatterbots") continue to fool people. "CyberLover", a malware program, preys on Internet users by convincing them to "reveal information about their identities or to lead them to visit a web site that will deliver malicious content to their computers".The program has emerged as a "Valentine-risk" flirting with people "seeking relationships online in order to collect their personal data".
The Chinese room
John Searle's 1980 paper Minds, Brains, and Programs proposed the "Chinese room" thought experiment and argued that the Turing test could not be used to determine if a machine can think.
Competiton
The Loebner Prize provides an annual platform for practical Turing Tests with the first competition held in November of 1991.It is underwritten by Hugh Loebner. The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in Massachusetts, United States, organized the prizes up to and including the 2003 contest. As Loebner described it, one reason the competition was created is to advance the state of AI research, at least in part, because no one had taken steps to implement the Turing Test despite 40 years of discussing it.
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Philosophical background
The question of whether it is possible for machines to think has a long history.
- Denis Diderot formulates in his Pensees Philosophiques a Turing-test criterion:"If they find a parrot who could answer to everything, I would claim it to be an intelligent being without hesitation."
- According to dualism, the mind is non-physical and, therefore, cannot be explained in purely physical terms.
- According to materialism, the mind can be explained physically, which leaves open the possibility of minds that are produced artificially.
- Ayer suggested a protocol to distinguish between a conscious man and an unconscious machine: "The only ground I can have for asserting that an object which appears to be conscious is not really a conscious being, but only a dummy or a machine, is that it fails to satisfy one of the empirical tests by which the presence or absence of consciousness is determined."
ELIZAIn 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum created a program which appeared to pass the Turing test. The program, known as ELIZA, worked by examining a user's typed comments for keywords.
If a keyword is found, a rule that transforms the user's comments is applied, and the resulting sentence is returned. If a keyword is not found, ELIZA responds either with a generic riposte or by repeating one of the earlier comments.
In addition, Weizenbaum developed ELIZA to replicate the behaviour of a Rogerian psychotherapist, allowing ELIZA to be "free to assume the pose of knowing almost nothing of the real world."
With these techniques, Weizenbaum's program was able to fool some people into believing that they were talking to a real person, with some subjects being "very hard to convince that ELIZA [...] isnot human."
PARRY
Kenneth Colby created PARRY in 1972, a program described as "ELIZA with attitude". It attempted to model the behaviour of a paranoid schizophrenic, using a similar (if more advanced) approach to that employed by Weizenbaum.The psychiatrists were able to make the correct identification only 48 percent of the time — a figure consistent with random guessing.
Chatterbots
In the 21st century, versions of these programs (now known as "chatterbots") continue to fool people. "CyberLover", a malware program, preys on Internet users by convincing them to "reveal information about their identities or to lead them to visit a web site that will deliver malicious content to their computers".The program has emerged as a "Valentine-risk" flirting with people "seeking relationships online in order to collect their personal data".
The Chinese room
John Searle's 1980 paper Minds, Brains, and Programs proposed the "Chinese room" thought experiment and argued that the Turing test could not be used to determine if a machine can think.
Competiton
The Loebner Prize provides an annual platform for practical Turing Tests with the first competition held in November of 1991.It is underwritten by Hugh Loebner. The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in Massachusetts, United States, organized the prizes up to and including the 2003 contest. As Loebner described it, one reason the competition was created is to advance the state of AI research, at least in part, because no one had taken steps to implement the Turing Test despite 40 years of discussing it.
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