Alan Turing, one of the founders of computer science, set
out to answer: “Can machines think?” (Christian 4). In order to solve this, he designed an
experiment in which judges had to decipher between two correspondents: one
human and one computer. During the
experiment, each correspondent is free to say anything in order to be
convincing. They can converse over serious issues, freely chat, joke, question...His hypothesis was that in
the year 2000, computers would fool 30% of human judges after five minutes of
dialogue. Though extreme advancements have been made: his prediction was
inaccurate, and author Brian Christian participated in a modern contest in
2009 to discover who is the most human robot and the most human human.
Turing believed that fooling judges by sufficiently
imitating humans displayed intelligence because the behavior would be seen as
that of an intelligent being. The
ability to adjust an answer or find something suitable to say rather than
simply recite a fact is a humanlike characteristic. One winner claimed he won by “being moody,
irritable, and obnoxious:” this humorous remark tells a deeper story about what
it means to be human. In class, we
discussed complexities of emotional expression, but overall, decided that it is
one of the ideas that we think makes us human. In Black Mirror: Be Right Back, after acquiring a robot imitator of
her deceased husband, Martha is unsatisfied.
She discovered that she missed these emotional, unpredictable aspects of
Ash. Flaws, weaknesses, and bad days
were not shown – these characteristics make up a crucial part of individuals. Next, the Turing Test assumes that humans are
unique, superior beings. Of course,
this is a notion created by human beings. When robots gain access to all
information, history, videos, etc – I believe they will be able to develop far
beyond human capabilities. They will no
longer need to prove themselves human, but we will attempt to keep up with
their vast ability.
Overall, the Turing Test assumes that imitating humanity is
the goal. I understand that it is an
experiment focused on technological advancement and innovation,
yet humans are deeply flawed. We live in
a society of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, mass destruction, rape,
genocide…human nature is not the goal. I wholeheartedly respect
the changes being made within computer science and the idea of artificial
intelligence, but the Turing Test, the imitation game, the most human robot contest, and similar experiments assume that human nature is the marker of intelligence, when quite frankly, logical, artificial
intelligence may be far more beneficial to society. We, as humans, can go beyond programming and hone in on
certain emotions, but often these lead to
mistakes and rash decisions. The
ability to express ourselves and have free will is a positive – robots are not
assumed to have this (contrary to Ava).
Yet we have hindered others for centuries because of our flawed nature,
biases, and human tendencies.
Question 6
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