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Turing Test Dumbed Down

Started by ddan, 2008.10.29, 12:52:56

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ddan

(Chicago) Computer scientist Alan Turing, long thought deceased, has just come
out of seclusion to reveal results of his research in Artificial Intelligence
(AI). "The way forward is simplicity," Dr Turing says in a merry quaver, "not
complexity. Humans are more likely to be fooled by simple algorithms than by
the most complex, at least in the near term." He elaborated, "The secret is to
rely on human flaws, to play a confidence game, or as it's called nowadays,
'social engineering.'" The flaw in humans that Dr Turing exploits is their
automatic construction of "myths" to fill in gaps of knowledge, which is why
simpler algorithms actually work better in practice. "Complex lies are easily
exposed. But pick a good plain howler that appears too simple to be a lie, and
stick to it despite questions, and people will create their own explanation of
how black can be white." The not-so-doddering Doctor adds with a cackle, "Good
simple lies are more believable than the truth. Every criminal and every
dictator knows this. Look someone straight in the eye and tell the most
outrageous howler you can think of, though it refutes every other experience
of a person's life, and even refutes the laws of physics, and odds are they'll
credit it long enough to do the damage. In fact, if the lie is big enough to
affect the society, a whole new industry will spring up to maintain the lie
and oppose the truth. Humans will believe their own beliefs rather than the
evidence of their own eyes."

The father of AI cites recent experiments of "playing merry hob" with forums
on the web. Having written a simple program able to post comments to a forum
topic, aided at first only to select a few keywords, the automated "troll" is
able to pass as human despite displays of appalling stupidity. "Using nothing
more than the text of the keywords, including its own on-line name, it does a
brute force search of the web, selects a found article at random, clips a bit
as if to highlight a relevant point, and posts it. Really, it requires no
intelligence at all to simulate artificial intelligence. You don't even have
to avoid obvious patterns, humans will conclude that no human could be so
stupid." That's the finding that so intrigues the legendary doctor. "Turns out
that though true AI is as far away as ever, brute force serves more than
adequately to finesse the test." He adds with mingled sadness and amusement
that, "Of course, humans get stupider by the day. Didn't really take that into
consideration when I first proposed my test. Was quite optimistic, back then."

ivan

ddan

Have you been reading the Marching Morons or watching Idiocracy by any chance?  Though I do agree there is one 'program' that seems hell bent on destroying any meaningful input to these forums.  I, for one, joined just to help by passing on what I know and I hate web forums hence I only post when I get round to it (yes I have a round toit in my draw).

warpcafe

"It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
By definition, there are already enough people to do that"
- G.H. Hardy