Bugs and memory hogs

Posted Jun 11, 2014 13:00 UTC (Wed) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389)
In reply to: Bugs and memory hogs by NightMonkey
Parent article: Firefox 30 released

> 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.