'Intelligent' Computers Put to the Test
Guardian Unlimited (UK) (10/05/08) Smith, David
Fifty years after mathematician Alan Turing questioned whether machines are capable of thinking, six programs will carry on a conversation with human interrogators in an experiment that will attempt to prove the answer is yes. To pass the Turing test, the software must trick the judges into believing they are talking to a human. So far, no program has passed the test, but six programs will soon answer questions posed by human volunteers at the University of Reading in an effort to do so. If any of the programs succeed, it will likely be considered the most significant advancement in artificial intelligence since the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997. The achievement could also raise profound questions surrounding whether a computer has the potential to be conscious and if humans have the right to turn such a computer off. University of Reading cyberneticist Kevin Warwick believes that machines are conscious, but in a different way, much like how a bat or a rat is conscious, but different from humans. "I think the reason Alan Turing set this game up was that maybe to him consciousness was not that important; it's more the appearance of it, and this test is an important aspect of appearance," Warwick says.
Click Here to View Full Article
No comments:
Post a Comment