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<br /> If there was one news item last week that got the better of the 2014 <keyword id="5929" type="SPORT" weightage="100" keywordseo="FIFA-World-Cup">FIFA World Cup</keyword> hype, it was that of a computer finally passing the <keyword id="633355" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Turing-Test">Turing Test</keyword> by making a third of the judges believe that it was a young boy from Ukraine. For those not in the loop about matters related to artificial intelligence or AI, the Turing Test is one of the most time-tested challenges to determine whether a machine can behave like a human or not. It was designed by mathematician Alan Turing in 1950 when he was confronted with the question – can machines think?<br />
 <br /> The ‘computer’ in question is actually what techies have termed as a chatbot, a chatting programme designed to simulate intelligent conversation with one or more humans. And this one, designed by a team of coders from Russia, pretended to be a 13-year-old boy named <keyword id="1244432" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Eugene-Goostman">Eugene Goostman</keyword>.<br />
 <br />
Now here’s the interesting thing – even though, maybe for a day, the Internet buzzed with the news with some calling it a milestone in the evolution of artificial intelligence, experts soon started punching holes into the claim.<br />
 <br />
Google’s engineering director and acclaimed futurist, Ray Kurzweil, believes that the milestone moment has not arrived yet. His biggest criticism of this event is the very thing that is the essence of the Turing Test – it is arbitrary in nature. This implies if a particular computer or programme manages to clear the Turing Test once, retaking the test will not necessarily yield the same result. This also means any claim about a computer passing this test will only be a temporary ‘win’ for AI. Being a futurist, Kurzweil believes that for machines to behave like humans, the process will have to be over a long period of time and hence, will not be based on one random test.<br />
 <br />
Kurzweil, too, interacted with Eugene. So what is his verdict? According to him, “he was not impressed.” The interaction reinforced his notion that Eugene is, in fact, <em>not</em> the AI we have been waiting for. Based on his chat with ‘Eugene,’ Kurzweil commented that this programme often fails to keep track of the conversation and often repeats phrases word for word. So, it is most likely that a qualified judge, trained in detecting fraud, will see through the façade.<br />
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Finally, the biggest red flag to the claim is the very person who organised the event – a certain Kevin Warwick from the University of Reading. For those who are clueless about the claims of Warwick, here are a few gems. In 2000, he claimed to be the world’s first and only ‘cyborg’ by having a chip implanted in his arm and then, a decade later, his lab claimed to have found the first case of a ‘human being affected by a computer virus.’<br />
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There was even a Kevin Warwick Watch site that kept tabs on all of Warwick’s bogus claims. His current claim also falls like a deck of cards where he states that Eugene beat the test by claiming to be a 13-year-old boy for whom English is a second language. An ideal Turing Test judges a machine without any such logical restriction or limit.<br />
 <br />
The bottom line is – Eugene Goostman beating the Turing Test has created some hype that may very well propel many coders, programmers and designers to work more on AI. At least, they know now that this test <em>can</em> be beaten, even if that is not always the case. And that could definitely pave the way for more dedicated and genuine efforts by machines trying to pass Alan Turing’s challenge. Till then, we can rest assured knowing that Skynet (of <em>Terminator</em> fame) is still far away.<br />

You Almost Had Us Fooled, Eugene; Almost…<b></b>

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/null0/271935168/">null0/Flickr</a></span></p><p class="caption"> Ray Kurzweil</p></div><p></p></div></div>If anyone should be happy that a computer "chatbot" known as Eugene Goostman <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/computer-passed-the-turing-test-2014-6">was declared the first winner of the Turing Test, </a>it is Ray Kurzweil.</p>
<p>But he's not.</p>
<p>Kurzweil stands to win a $20,000 bet, one of oldest public bets on the internet. Back in 2002 Kurzweil (a scientist renowned for his accurate tech predictions), bet Mitch Kapor (founder of Lotus Development Corp., inventor of spreadsheet software) $20,000 that a computer would pass the Turing Test by 2029.</p>
<p>It was the first bet made on a site that keeps track of such things, <a href="http://longbets.org/1/">"Long Bets."</a></p>
<p>The Turing Test comes from c<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">omputer science pioneer and World War II codebreaker Alan Turing. He postulated that if a computer could talk to humans and fool 30% of them into thinking they were talking to a real person, not a computer, then that the computer was as intelligent as a human - it was a computer that could "think."</span></p>
<p>On Saturday a chatbot named Eugene Goostman was declared in a press release by the <a href="http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR583836.aspx">University of Reading</a> to be the first to pass the Turing Test.</p>
<p>In a conversation limited to 5 minutes, Eugene Goostman told <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/computer-passed-the-turing-test-2014-6">30 judges from the Royal Society</a> that it was a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy, speaking English as a second language.</p>
<p>And <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/computer-passed-the-turing-test-2014-6">33% of them bought it</a>.</p>
<p>The test was hosted by the University of Reading. Five machines were tested.</p>
<p>Kurzweil says he's been fielding a stream of congratulations for winning ever since, he <a href="http://www.kurzweilai.net/response-by-ray-kurzweil-to-the-announcement-of-chatbot-eugene-goostman-passing-the-turing-test">writes in a blog post</a>.</p>
<p>But there's just one problem. He doesn't think he's won. He doesn't think the circumstances of the test were reasonable, and, like others, he thinks the Eugene Goostman chatbot is nothing special.</p>
<p>Kurzweil writes:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"... having the chatbot claim to be a 13-year-old child, and one for whom English is not a first language, is effectively a restriction. Moreover, the interactions were reportedly limited to five minutes each. There is a high likelihood of fooling naïve judges in such a brief period of time.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I chatted with the chatbot Eugene Goostman, and was not impressed. Eugene does not keep track of the conversation, repeats himself word for word, and often responds with typical chatbot non sequiturs."</p>
<p>Kurzweil then posts a transcript of the conversation with Eugene Goostman and like the others we've seen, it is filled with nonsense responses.  Here's a small part:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Question:</strong> How old were you when you started to wear glasses?<br /> <strong>Eugene:</strong> No I was not! How can you think so?! If I'm not mistaken - you still didn't tell me where you live. OR it's a secret?:-)</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Question:</strong> I did tell you where I live. I told you several times. Do you remember?<br /> <strong>Eugene:</strong> Oh damn! Poor confused cyborg you are! Those malicious robots erased your memory! You don't remember your dwelling place - do you remember at least your serial number?</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong>Question:</strong> I remember. You are the one who did not remember.<br /> <strong>Eugene:</strong> Am I really the one who did not remember? But well, no time for arguing now! Could you enlighten me with any other hidden knowledge about myself? :-))) If I'm not mistaken - you still didn't tell me where you live. OR it's a secret?:-)</p>
<p>Kurzweil concludes:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"Apparently, we have now entered the era of premature announcements of a computer having passed Turing's eponymous test. I continue to believe that with the right rules, this test is the right assessment of human-level intelligence in a machine."</p>
<p>He's not the only one who isn't impressed. Business Insider chatted with <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chat-with-program-that-passed-turing-test-2014-6">Eugene Goostman and it was a mess.</a></p>
<p>Whether this win stands or not (other chatbots have also been declared winners), the fact is, we're still waiting for a computer that has truly mastered the art of human conversation.</p>

Ray Kurzweil Says He Didn't Actually Win The Longest-Running Bet On The Internet 

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right"><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alan_Turing_photo.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></p><p class="caption">Alan Turing in 1951</p></div><p></p></div>On Saturday, a chat bot named Eugene Goostman <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/computer-passed-the-turing-test-2014-6">was recognized as the first computer</a> to officially pass the Turing Test.</p>
<p>Some, however, have expressed skepticism at this claim, especially since other computers have similarly duped humans in the past. </p>
<p>The Turing Test is a trial developed by famous mathematician Alan Turing, who worked on cracking the Enigma code during the second World War.</p>
<p>The test seeks to find whether or not judges would be able to decipher computer responses from human answers.</p>
<p>If the computer is able to make 30% of the judges believe it's human, it passes the test.  </p>
<p>During the University of Reading's test on Saturday, which took place at the Royal Society in the UK, <a href="http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR583836.aspx">Eugene Goostman fooled 33% of the judges</a> into thinking he was a 13-year-old boy from the Ukraine. </p>
<p>The University of Reading claims that this is the first time a computer has ever truly passes the Turing Test, but some other computer-generated responses have tricked humans just as well in the past.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/computer-becomes-first-to-pass-turing-test-in-artificial-intelligence-milestone-but-academics-warn-of-dangerous-future-9508370.html">Independent.co.uk</a></span></p><p class="caption">The Eugene Goostman chat bot</p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>In 2011, a chatbot named Cleverbot convinced 59% of the judges that it was human using a similar tactic. During the event, 30 volunteers engaged in a four minute conversation with an unknown entity,<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20865-software-tricks-people-into-thinking-it-is-human.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&amp;nsref=online-news#.U5X5XOddVXd"> New Scientist reports</a>.</p>
<p>Half of the participants spoke with Cleverbot while the other half chatted with real humans. These conversations were shown on large TV screens for the audience to see. Both the volunteers and audience members voted, with 1,334 votes cast. </p>
<p>Eugene, by comparison, only convinced 33% of 30 judges that it was human after a series of five-minute conversations.</p>
<p>Accomplished computer scientists and tech industry investors have come forward to express their skepticism about the results. </p>
<p>For instance, Chris Dixon, co-founder of Hunch.com and general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, posted <a href="https://twitter.com/cdixon">a string of tweets</a> questioning how the competition was judged.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/cdixon">Twitter</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/cdixon">Twitter</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://twitter.com/cdixon">Twitter</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p>Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist and faculty member at MIT, <a href="http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1858&amp;utm_source=hootsuite&amp;utm_campaign=hootsuite">challenged Eugene in conversation</a> to illustrate how robotic his responses seem. Here are some of the funniest snippets from Eugene and Aaronson's conversation:</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1858&amp;utm_source=hootsuite&amp;utm_campaign=hootsuite">Shtetl-Optimized/ Scott Aaronson</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p> Professor Murray Shanahan of the Department of Computing at Imperial College London<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/kellyoakes/no-a-computer-did-not-just-pass-the-turing-test"> told Buzzfeed </a>that he doesn't believe Eugene truly passed the Turing Test, saying the following:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Of course the Turing Test hasn't been passed. I think it's a great shame that it's been reported that way, because it reduces the worth of serious AI research. We are still a very long way from achieving human-level AI, and it trivialises Turing's thought experiment (which is fraught with problems anyway) to suggest otherwise.</p>
<p>Shanahan also told Buzzfeed that the Turing Test is a poor means of testing artificial intelligence since it puts too much emphasis on language. Human intelligence also involves the way we interact with the physical world, which is something the Turing Test doesn't take into account when it comes to measuring artificial intelligence.</p>

Why The 'Super Computer' That Won The Turing Test May Not Be As Smart As You Think

<p>A computer program named <span> 'Eugene Goostman'" </span>has convinced a third of humans into thinking it is a 13-year-old boy, becoming the first machine to pass the Turing test, <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Hannah Furness of </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10884839/Computer-passes-Turing-Test-for-the-first-time-after-convincing-users-it-is-human.html">The Telegraph reports</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Computer science <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/alan-turing-enigma-code-nazi-world-war-2012-3?op=1#ixzz344z0cQ6h">pioneer and World War II codebreaker</a> Alan Turing created the test in 1950 in a paper which <a href="http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Turing-Computing-Machinery-and-Intelligence.pdf">opens</a> with the words: "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think?'"</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">He argued that if a machine </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">dupes 30% of human participants during a series of chats,</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> then it is exhibiting intelligent behaviorthat is indistinguishable from that of a human. </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Consequently, the <span>artificial intelligence idea of a </span></span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"thinking machine" would no longer be contradictory.</span></p>
<div class="secondPar">
<p><span>'Eugene Goostman,' a program </span>developed to simulate a 13-year-old boy<span>, convinced 33% of the judges that it was human <span>at the Royal Society in London.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><span>University of Reading</span><span> P</span><span>rofessor Kevin Warwick, told the Telegraph that</span> having computers with this level of intelligence has ''implications for society'' and would serve as a ''wake-up call to cybercrime."</span></span></span></p>
</div>
<h3><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10884839/Computer-passes-Turing-Test-for-the-first-time-after-convincing-users-it-is-human.html">Check out the full report &gt;</a></h3>

A Computer Has Reportedly Passed The Turing Test For The First Time

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Screenshot</span></p><p class="caption">Rollo Carpenter.</p></div><p></p></div></div><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The artificial intelligence world was largely abuzz this week </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/computer-passed-the-turing-test-2014-6">upon the news that a computer program</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> designed to simulate a text-based conversation with a 13-year-old Ukrainian child had passed the iconic "Turing test," successfully convincing several human judges that they were actually communicating with a flesh-and-blood youth named "Eugene Goostman."</span></p>
<p>Mathematician Alan Turing first proposed the test in 1950 as a benchmark to answer a simple question: can machines think?</p>
<p>A piece of software that can communicate with a person and successfully be considered "human" is said to have passed the Turing test. The only matter is one of threshold - what percentage of the time must the program be able to imitate humanity?</p>
<p>The Eugene Goostman computer program had 33% of judges fooled this week, which was deemed enough to pass the test. But almost three years ago, a chatbot called Cleverbot fooled a whopping 59.3% human participants in a similar Turing test. (The real, living humans who participated were only rated 63.3% human by the other judges!)</p>
<p>Artificial intelligence developer Rollo Carpenter took Cleverbot online in 1997 under a different name, where it has since gone through a number of redevelopments that allow it to harness a huge amount of data based on its conversational exchanges with people over the internet. <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In "approximately 1988," Carpenter saw how he could create a chat program that would start to learn by generating its own feedback loop - things said to it become things it says to other people, and it starts to learn how to respond in ways people want it to respond, including in different languages.</span></p>
<p>"The organizers [of this week's Turing test] aimed to get press," Carpenter told Business Insider in an interview. "They were aware it would be a big news story, and in a sense they were naive with their belief that they could get away with not revealing the nature of the test. It <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">was declared that it was a five-minute test, but it was not declared that it was conducted on a split screen. This cuts the value of the results in two."</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Instead of communicating with one human-or-computer entity at a time, human judges chatted on a split screen with a human and a computer at the same time. Each session lasted for five minutes, meaning judges were effectively only spending 2.5 minutes with each entity.</span></p>
<p><span><span>"It'd be a more reasonable and proper test to hold a conversation where the entity on the other end is randomized and you then have to decide which it is. Otherwise you're declaring knowledge in advance, and that's not the way a Turing test should be run," Carpenter said. </span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"T</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">he 30% 'pass' requirement makes a bit of nonsense of the entire story and should not have been accepted in a contest. </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">50% is better number, more human. If the duration of the conversation needs to be five minutes then that should be the maximum, but only while holding a conversation with one entity at a time."</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So why is everyone raving about Eugene Goostman when <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20865-software-tricks-people-into-thinking-it-is-human.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&amp;nsref=online-news#.U5nlhI1dW_c">Cleverbot already pulled off quite the AI feat</a> three years ago? Carpenter explains:</span></p>
<p>"In 2011 when Cleverbot achieved 59%, I left it open to interpretation as to whether a Turing Test had been passed, and that message was perhaps harder to pick up," Carpenter said. "The New Scientist and some other did. But also, the power of a press release from a University with Royal Society was simply considerably greater."</p>
<p>Cleverbot tweets out some of the more humorous or surprising exchanges it has with people chatting with it. Some of our favorites are below, with the human user indicated by the "|" symbol.</p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Screenshot</span></p></div><p></p></div></div><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Screenshot</span></p></div><p></p></div></div><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Screenshot</span></p></div><p></p></div></div><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Screenshot</span></p></div><p></p></div></div><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Screenshot</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>

No One's Talking About The Amazing Chatbot That Passed The Turing Test 3 Years Ago

<p class="float_right">This past Sunday, a computer program got its five minutes (or three days) of fame when it reportedly became the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/computer-becomes-first-to-pass-turing-test-in-artificial-intelligence-milestone-but-academics-warn-of-dangerous-future-9508370.html" target="_blank">first computer to pass the Turing Test</a>.</p>
<p class="float_right">Alan Turing created the test in 1950, claiming that a computer that could fool 30% of people into thinking that it was a human would mean that it could exhibit intelligent behavior on par with human beings.</p>
<p class="float_right">On Sunday, a program named <a href="http://www.princetonai.com/bot/bot.jsp">Eugene Goostman</a> convinced 33% of judges that it was a 13-year-old boy from Odessa, Ukraine. Thus passing the Turing Test and spurring lots of media attention. But that attention soon turned to skepticism as it was revealed that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-turing-test-eugene-goostman-2014-6">other computers had already passed the test</a> with higher scores.</p>
<p class="float_right">We decided to see what the fuss was all about and have a little chat with Eugene ourselves.</p>
<p class="center"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>Alan Turing</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p class="center"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>PrincetonAI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p class="center"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>PrincetonAI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p class="center"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>PrincetonAI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p class="full"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>PrincetonAI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p class="full"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>PrincetonAI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p class="full"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>PrincetonAI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p class="full"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>PrincetonAI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p class="full"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>PrincetonAI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p class="full"><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span>PrincetonAI</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p>
<p class="full">And people actually believed this computer was a human?</p>

We Chatted With The Computer Program That Passed The Turing Test, And It Was A Mess

<p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image"><a title_source="Apple" title_caption="Apple CEO Tim Cook" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/539596e069bedde43f952134-960/tim-cook-iphone-wwdc.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Apple</span></p><p class="caption">Apple CEO Tim Cook</p></div><p></p></div></div>Good morning! Here's what you need to know before your first meeting of the day:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-split-2014-6"><strong>1. Apple stock will split 7 for one today. </strong></a>It will start trading at somewhere under $100 by the looks of things. It closed last week at $645.57.<strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-6-features-2014-6"><strong>2. Here are the latest rumors on what we'll see in Apple's iPhone 6.</strong></a> No NFC, but there will be inductive charging, a payment system around Touch ID, faster LTE speeds, and (of course) a 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch screen.<strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.wired.com/2014/06/smartphone-notifications/"><strong>3. In iOS 8, the notifications center is going to become much more important.</strong></a> It will be used for two-way interactive messaging.</p>
<p><a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/apples-new-beat-what-steve-jobs-and-dr-dre-have-in-common-1402080817"><strong>4. The Wall Street Journal compared Dr. Dre to Steve Jobs.</strong></a> OK. Sure.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/computer-passed-the-turing-test-2014-6">5. A computer has passed the Turing test for the first time:</a></strong> A program named "Eugene Goostman" convinced a third of human judges into thinking it was a 13-year-old boy, becoming the first machine to pass the Turing test, Hannah Furness of The Telegraph reports.<strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://9to5google.com/2014/06/06/report-google-in-talks-to-acquire-music-streaming-service-songza-for-15-million/"><strong>6. Google is reportedly looking to buy Songza for $15 million.</strong></a> Google needs help with music streaming curation.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/insane-origins-of-comic-sans-2014-6">7. This is the guy who invented Comic Sans.</a></strong> Microsoft employee.<strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jun/04/everyword-twitter-ends-adam-parrish-english-language"><strong>8. This person just finished tweeting every single word in the English language.</strong></a> One. At. A. Time.</p>
<p><a href="http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/06/warning-your-phone-is-locked-crypto-ransomware-makes-its-debut-on-android/"><strong>9. There is a malware trojan that locks Android phones and demands payment.</strong></a> It encrypts photos, videos, and documents stored on a device and demands a ransom for them to be restored.</p>
<p><a href="http://recode.net/2014/06/08/the-17-billion-man-full-code-conference-video-of-ubers-travis-kalanick/"><strong>10. Full video of Travis Kalanick's interview at the Code Conference.</strong></a> He delivered on that record-breaking fundraising promise.</p>

10 Things In Tech You Need To Know This Morning

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>A24 YouTube Channel</span></p><p class="caption">The robot Eve undergoes a version of the Turing Test in the 2015 film "Ex Machina."</p></div><p></p></div></div>One of the biggest misconceptions about artificial intelligence (AI) is thinking that it must pass the Turing Test to be truly intelligent.</p><p>But AI scientists say the test is basically worthless and distracts people from real AI science.</p><p>"Almost nobody in AI is working on passing the Turing Test, except maybe as a hobby," Stuart Russell, an AI researcher at University of California, Berkeley, <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/artificial-intelligence-machine-consciousness-expert-stuart-russell-future-ai-2015-7">told Tech Insider in an interview</a>. "The people who do work on passing the Turing Test in these various competitions, I wouldn't describe them as mainstream AI researchers."</p><p>Named for the famed computer scientist <a href="http://mind.oxfordjournals.org/content/LIX/236/433.full.pdf">Alan Turing, who proposed it in a 1950 paper</a>, the Turing Test tasks a human evaluator with determining whether he is speaking with a human or a machine. If the machine can pass for human, then it's passed the test.</p><p>Last summer, Eugene Goostman, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-turing-test-eugene-goostman-2014-6">a computer program with the persona of a teenage Ukrainian boy</a>, passed a Turing Test competition at the University of Reading, according to a press release.</p><p>The program fooled at least a third of the 30 judges in to thinking it was human. Kevin Warwick, an AI researcher and one of the event's organizers, declared that this was the first time a computer program had truly passed the test, in a "<a href="http://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR583836.aspx">milestone that will go down in history as one of the most exciting</a>."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"><p class="source"><span><a href="http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1858&amp;utm_source=hootsuite&amp;utm_campaign=hootsuite">Shtetl-Optimized/ Scott Aaronson</a></span></p></div><p></p></div></div>But, soon after the announcement, critics started testing Eugene out for themselves.</p><p>The chatbot is no longer available online, but most transcripts show how it relied on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chat-with-program-that-passed-turing-test-2014-6">humor and misdirection to confuse the judges and often repeated unintelligible responses.</a></p><p>In short, it was pretty lame.</p><p>In fact, the program's design as a 13-year-old boy with a bad grasp of English may have been why at least 10 of the judges were fooled.</p><p>According to The Guardian, Eugene's creator Vladimir Veselov said his age made for a perfect smokescreen to the programs failings, making it "perfectly reasonable that he doesn't know anything."</p><p>Many researchers, like Gary Marcus, cognitive scientist at New York University, get frustrated when the press picks up on these kinds of stories. He told Science Magazine that such competitions test AI that are more akin to "parlor tricks" than to a "program [that] is genuinely intelligent."</p><p>Detractors like Marcus and Russell argue that the Turing Test measures just one aspect of intelligence. A single test for conversation neglects the <a href="http://vision.stanford.edu/Science-2015-Turing.pdf">vast number of tasks AI researchers have been working to improve separately</a>, including vision, common-sense reasoning, or even physical manipulation and <a href="http://www.techinsider.io/the-robots-of-boston-dynamics-in-action-2015-8">locomotion</a>, according to Science.</p><p>Russell, who is also co-author of the standard textbook "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach," said the Turing Test wasn't even supposed to be taken literally - it's a thought experiment used to show how the intelligence of AI should rely more on behavior than on whether it is self-aware.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table full"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Jack English courtesy of Black Bear Pictures</span></p><p class="caption">Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing in the biopic "The Imitation Game."</p></div><p></p></div></div>"It wasn't designed as the goal of AI, it wasn't designed to create a research agenda to work towards," he said. "It was designed as a thought experiment to explain to people who were very skeptical at the time that the possibility of intelligent machines did not depend on achieving consciousness, that you could have a machine that would behave intelligently ... because it was behaving indistinguishably from a human being."</p><p>Russell isn't alone in his opinion.</p><p>Marvin Minsky, one of the founding fathers of AI science, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2003/02/26/loebner_part_one/">condemned one competition called the Loebner Prize as a farce</a>, according to Salon. Minsky called it "obnoxious and stupid" and offered his own money to anyone that could convince Hugh Loebner, the competition's namesake who put up his own money for the prize, to cancel it altogether.</p><p>When asked what researchers are actually working on, Russell mentioned improving AI's "reasoning, learning, decision making" capabilities.</p><p>Luckily, NYU researcher Marcus is designing a series of tests that focus on just those things, according to Science. One proposed test would require a machine to understand "grammatically ambiguous sentences" that most humans would understand.</p><p>For example, with the sentence "the trophy would not fit in the brown suitcase because it was too big," most people would understand that the trophy was too big, not the suitcase. Such understanding is often difficult to program, according to Science.</p><p>Marcus hopes that the new competitions would "motivate researchers to develop machines with a deeper understanding of the world."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-run-faster-2015-8">How to make your iPhone run faster</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="MybWgydzqsWaKK93VQ0UpHYBbEZOLrfM" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Researchers say we don't need to pass the Turing Test

<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="YouTube/calloftreyarch" title_caption="Microsoft's Cortana is an early version of this technology." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5419a8236bb3f7bf148e9648-960/halo-cortana-14.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACvIxGpzGs8">YouTube/calloftreyarch</a></span></p><p class="caption">Microsoft's Cortana is an early version of this technology.</p></div><p></p></div>"When you and I die, our kids aren't going to go to our tombstones, they're going to fire up our digital twins and talk to them," John Smart tells Business Insider. </span></p>
<p>As a futurist and founder of the <a href="http://www.accelerating.org/johnsmart.html">Acceleration Studies Foundation</a>, Smart uses many names for the technology he predicts - digital twin, cyber-self, personal agent - but the concept stays the same: a computer-based version of you.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Using various strategies for gathering and organizing your data, digital twins will mirror peoples' interests and values. They'll "input user writings and archived email, realtime wearable smartphones (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifelog">lifelogs</a>), and verbal feedback to allow increasingly intelligent and productive guidance of the user's purchases, learning, communication, feedback, and even voting activities," <a href="http://www.accelerationwatch.com/lui.html#cybertwin">Smart writes</a>. They'll displace much of today's information overload from regular people to their cyber-selves.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">And one day, Smart theorizes, these digital twins will hold conversations and have faces that mimic human emotion. "They will become increasingly like us and extensions of us," Smart says.</span></p>
<p>The concept might sound far-fetched. But c<span>onsider that people often turn to a deceased friend or family member's Facebook wall to grieve. </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">People already form relationships with each other's online presences. As computer <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> advances, the connection will only improve and strengthen - even with identities that aren't real people.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"Where we're headed is creating this world in which you feel you have this thing out there looking after your values," Smart says. </span></p>
<p><span>For digital twins to reach their full potential, however, they require two important developments: "good conversational interfaces and semantic maps," Smart explains.</span></p>
<h3>Conversational Interfaces (CI)</h3>
<p>Ron Kaplan, a data scientist in Silicon Valley, already chronicled the necessity of CI for <a href="http://www.wired.com/2013/03/conversational-user-interface/">Wired last year</a>. In his words, simply scheduling a flight could require 18 different clicks or taps on 10 different screens. "What we need to do now is be able to <em>talk </em>with our devices," he wrote. </p>
<p>Smart couldn't agree more. "With technology, we want things that enable us to use as much of our brains as possible at one time," he adds. </p>

<p>For example, with a single, spoken sentence, you could tell your personal agent you feel sick. It could reference your calendar or emails to determine when to make a doctor's appointment. And when you arrive, you might not even need to fill out forms. Your personal agent would have looked at your hospital records and healthcare information for you - and then later relayed the outcome of any tests taken during your visit.</p>
<p>While no company boasts such comprehensive abilities yet, many have started to implement similar technologies. Right now, Apple has Siri. Microsoft has Cortana. And in the summer of 2014, a program named "<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/computer-passed-the-turing-test-2014-6">Eugene Goostman</a>," imitating a Ukrainian teen, passed the Touring Test (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chat-with-program-that-passed-turing-test-2014-6">with some healthy skepticism</a>).</p>
<p>Smart, however, places great emphasis on an earlier cognitive machine: <a href="http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/">IBM's Watson</a>, which the company claims "literally gets smarter." <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Watson's performance on Jeopardy against champion Ken Jennings, shown below, convinced many skeptics of the emergence and optimization of CI. </span></p>
<p></p>
<p>Vocal technologies like Siri, Cortana, and Watson already rely on semantic maps, tools that represent relationships in data, especially language. And companies constantly improve them. For example, a late <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2424427,00.asp">2013 Google update</a> brought pronouns to the table - and Smart's wife, for one, quickly noticed a difference. </p>
<p>Walking in downtown Mountain View, his wife pulled out her phone, and as a test, asked Google, "Who is the President of the United States?" Naturally, her phone responded: "Barack Obama."</p>
<p>Next, Smart's wife inquired: "Who is his wife?"</p>
<p>Phone: "Michelle Obama."</p>
<p>Smart's wife: "Where was she born?"</p>
<p>Phone: "Chicago, Illinois."</p>
<p>Not only did Smart's wife engage in conversation with her phone, it understood words like "he" and "she" - pronouns that refer to an antecedent earlier in the conversation. <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"Now, you don't have to specify every little detail," Smart explains. "Because the computer has some memory of previous exchanges and uses that as context."</span></p>
<p>Once we create "decent maps of human emotion," Smart adds, digital twins will even have faces to help them communicate. They'll smile or furrow their brows to show whether they understand or not.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"But the next step is something I call a '<a href="http://www.accelerating.org/articles/hpe2032army.html#valuecosm">valuecosm</a>,'" Smart explains. </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<h2>The 'Valuecosm'</h2>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">A valuecosm doesn't just, for example, analyze all your emails and formulate a record of your interests and values. It allows a personal agent to interact in your stead based on this information.</span></p>
<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images" title_caption="Your digital twin can help you choose products in-line with your values." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5419a8f46bb3f7bc148e964a-960/supermarket-grocery-store-shopping-17.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>ChinaFotoPress/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Your digital twin can help you choose products in-line with your values.</p></div><p></p></div>"You're reaching for a can of tuna at a grocery store in 2030," Smart envisions.  "A<span id="docs-internal-guid-1327d224-7c24-b783-1386-a30b02d99c44">nd your bracelet gives a green arrow to move your hand a few inches to the left, from Bumble Bee to Chicken of the Sea or whatever."</span></p>
<p>You'd previously told your personal agent to watch for foods with high mercury levels or companies that over-fish the oceans. So this wearable piece of technology, imprinted with a digital version of your values, informed you which product to choose based on that. </p>
<p>"And then, back in your car, your digital twin directs you to the gas station that's most in line with your environmental values," Smart adds. <span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">A valuecosm not only uses information in a human way, it's flexible, too. You can review your settings and change them manually.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"You'll be having a conversation with your [personal] agent, and you say, 'I want more of this or this plus something else,'" Smart explains. "You know, I care more about social justice so make that area bigger."</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">To make this technology the most usable and effective though, your digital twin will have to <em>pull</em> your information from various places, with your permission - not <em>push</em> its functions onto you. </span></p>
<p><span><span>"People who have started using Google alerts, they've moved themselves toward a more pull-based view of the internet," Smart says.</span></span></p>

<p><span>In truth, the concept started as a way to improve advertising. For example, internet cookies monitor your online activity, allowing companies to match their advertisements to your interests. But instead of a company "pushing" their products or ideas onto you and trying to create demand, with pull-based marketing, you give permission for access to your information, and the advertising follows. </span></p>
<p><span>"Instead of a filter, it's more like a magnet," Smart explains. That idea, however, could lead to even less online privacy.</span></p>
<h3>The Future Of Privacy</h3>
<p><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">The uncertain status of online privacy already bothers the general public. People criticize companies like Google and Amazon that only pull their information from what's available. But with digital twins, we'll have to give full permission for companies to access our online identities to optimize our use of the technology.</span></p>
<p><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">"You know, I'd like to have control of my healthcare or financial information in my own little internet locker," Smart admits. "But that kind of thinking is first generation. You can't accomplish much by having control of your own data."</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><div class="KonaFilter image-container float_right click-to-enlarge"><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Flickr user Carsten Tolkmit" title_caption="Talking to your digital twin could one day be like looking in the mirror." class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/5419a97c6bb3f7ee1c8e9648-960/mirror-beauty-narcissism-reflection-7.jpg"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/-salvaje-/8106678616">Flickr user Carsten Tolkmit</a></span></p><p class="caption">Talking to your digital twin could one day be like looking in the mirror.</p></div><p></p></div>Big-name companies using algorithms and predictive analytics can probably best host our personal agents. As long as people feel they have strong control over the technology, privacy will come secondary, in Smart's opinion.</span></p>
<p><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">"People who are thinking that you can control your own identity aren't thinking about the problem right," he says. "The future of personal control isn't control of data. The future that we care about is control of an algorithmic interface of your identity."</span></p>
<p><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">For comparison, Smart mentions domestication. Humanity didn't engineer the brains of cats and dogs. We simply chose the ones more amenable to us and bred them. "We'll do the same to our advanced AIs, whose brains we won't be designing, but rather teaching, like a small child," Smart explains.</span></p>
<p>And as Smart predicts, all these technologies, required to make fully functional personal agents possible, are only about five years away.</p>

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