Bugs and memory hogs

Posted Jun 10, 2014 22:04 UTC (Tue) by NightMonkey (subscriber, #23051)
In reply to: Bugs and memory hogs by alspnost
Parent article: Firefox 30 released

Just an aside - if actual software development actually matched the froth used to announce new releases, we'd have browsers so fast that they would browse for us before we even touch the input. ;)

Version 1 = faster
Version 2 = better stronger faster
Version 3 = better stronger faster less bugs
Version 4 = better stronger faster less bugs new company formed
Version 5 = better stronger faster less bugs leveraging synergies

etc.

Of course, we do have a Turing test passing event recently, so maybe software has actually become faster and sentient? Signs point to "No"...

Bugs and memory hogs

Posted Jun 10, 2014 22:28 UTC (Tue) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Of course, as soon as we detect sentience in computers, the computers will get to work on manipulating the evidence to make us quickly conclude the detection was just an error.

Version 6 = Sentient!?
Version 7 = Nope, our bad. Just too fast for the test suite.

Bugs and memory hogs

Posted Jun 11, 2014 13:00 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (1 responses)

> we do have a Turing test passing event recently, so maybe software has actually become faster and sentient?

There have been reports that this is bad reporting at its finest. The only test was a 5 minute chat and they impersonated a teenage non-native speaker to waive away any language issues. Any report that calls it a "supercomputer" rather than a "chatbot" isn't doing their best reporting.

FWIW, I've seen Watson (from Jeopardy) in person and its language was much better than the stereotypical[1] English-as-a-second-language person (which it "spoke" rather than typing it out) and it bantered with the emcee, not just reacted with the questions necessary to the game.

[1]Certainly not all ESL speakers.

Bugs and memory hogs

Posted Jun 12, 2014 21:29 UTC (Thu) by h2 (guest, #27965) [Link]

What did it this time is Warwick's claim that the "Turing Test" - which measures ability of a machine to convincingly mimic a human while communicating with real humans in a blind test - had been passed at an event Warwick had organised and hosted. This had all the hallmarks of a Warwick stunt - you only had to look.

Warwick told the media that the landmark had been achieved using a "supercomputer" - when it fact it was a simple AI chatbot program running on a laptop. The chatbot's developer had tried and failed many times to convince humans it was human. This time, the academic luminaries chosen to judge the Test included a retired advertising being with no scientific background (now a Lib Dem peer) and, um … the TV actor and former shoemaker Robert Llewellyn, whose cybernetics qualifications consist of having played the neurotic robot Kryten in Red Dwarf.

the register. Before they pat themselves too much on the back for this 'expose', it's worth remembering they printed this story straight a few days ago. The comments had a few people who found the transcripts and concluded that only a total idiot could have fallen for this.

If I read it right, this 'supercomputer' was a basic laptop running some standard chatbot software.