How would you distinguish the man from the machine?
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4Eliza says "Oh... determine the man from the machine?"– kevin clineCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 9:00
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8"That September 11th thing was amazing, wasn't it?" - A human would get the reference, a machine is much less likely to. Generally the best way would be to pose something where you can expect a decent emotional response from a human, but where the programmer may have not thought of that situation. You look like a jackass if it is a human, though.– TZHXCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 9:27
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3I believe that 70% of Earth population (incl. children adults elders and retarded, etc.) would not get that reference, and 30% would not get it even if you say it in their native language. We are not being fair to the machines.– JobCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 15:39
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7I would ask lots of sex-related questions.– JobCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 15:40
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3closed? Really? Does it come more subjective than this?– user1249Commented Apr 6, 2011 at 20:19
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26 Answers
I'd just ask him "If you could pose a question to a turing test candidate, what would it be?".
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14I don't think it is a good question. For one thing, both "What is a Turing test?" and "I don't know" would be a perfectly legitimate answer from most humans, and a trivial choice for a machine. Commented Apr 1, 2011 at 12:24
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3Well then you could explain what it is in simple terms, and then ask again. Commented Apr 1, 2011 at 12:33
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4The point here is that the machine would enter an endless loop and stack overflow, hence being revealed!– PhilippeCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 12:36
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6@Philippe, unless it has been taught to ask difficult questions on programmers.stackexchange.com...– user1249Commented Apr 1, 2011 at 18:25
What is the meaning of...'); DROP TABLE Responses;
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3+1. See also xkcd.com/327 "Did you really name your son
Robert'); DROP TABLE Students;" ?– petrusCommented Apr 2, 2011 at 15:36 -
1@Goran, amzing! By the way, this answer characterizes the test subject quite precisely.– P ShvedCommented Apr 4, 2011 at 18:03
Humans use rapport to sniff out artifice
Essentially this means that it will always take a series of questions and subsequent analysis of the answers to establish if the anonymous entity at the end of the line is a human being or not. A single question will not achieve this.
I suppose you could ask "Will you meet me in the car park in 2 minutes?" and then see what turns up.
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This is the correct answer. A Turing test involves a conversation with a possible AI, not just a single question/response, which would be almost trivial to write an AI that could pass. Commented Apr 7, 2011 at 14:50
You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?
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1@Jader, In answer to your query, they're written down for him.– user1249Commented Apr 1, 2011 at 18:21
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4And if the answer is "Let me tell you about my mother..." then 1) it is a machine, and 2) RUN– rsennaCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 21:16
"Why are manhole covers round?"
Perhaps followed up with "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"
EDIT: I've come to think of that Douglas Hofstadter has done a delightful piece on this exact subject (including the highest rated answer) and found an online version at http://www.cse.unr.edu/~sushil/class/ai/papers/coffeehouse.html. Especially the scenario where he tries to disclose Nicolai in the "Post Scriptum" section is a fantastic read. I believe I read this in Metamagical Themes.
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+1 for "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" very sensible question.– ChaniCommented Jun 20, 2011 at 4:30
Challenge it to a game of "Global Thermonuclear War". Or perhaps a game of tic-tac-toe versus itself.
Anything ironic. So far machines are totally incapable of interpreting jokes and irony. Although some people are too, so you may get some false negatives ;-)
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Yes, but they would either be replicants or Americans - so either way same response. Commented Apr 1, 2011 at 23:01
I'd see if it could handle lots of slang, incorrect grammar and implicit meaning as efficiently as a human:
Dude, is you some kinda fancy-schmancy circuit board or does you have DNA?
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2To my knowledge that would filter out most humans too.– user1249Commented Apr 1, 2011 at 18:18
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"Will your answer to this question be negative?"
Note: the original Turing test proposal was for the computer to pretend to be a woman, the interviewer to be a man, and the test limited to five minutes. If the man was unable to determine if the computer was a woman or not in five minutes, we would have to conclude that the computer was intelligent, "because the converse is not polite".
"Are you Watson?" :-p
Jokes aside, I think it is impossible to determine man from machine with a single question, especially without any context info.
How much wood, would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck would chuck wood?
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3A woodchuck could chuck no amount of wood since a woodchuck couldn't chuck wood.– AntCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 9:46
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3But if a woodchuck could chuck and would chuck some amount of wood, what amount of wood would a woodchuck chuck? Commented Apr 1, 2011 at 12:21
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3Even if a woodchuck could chuck wood and even if a woodchuck would chuck wood, should a woodchuck chuck wood?– bastibeCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 12:50
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7A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. (According to the tongue twister, although the paper "The Ability of Woodchucks to Chuck Cellulose Fibers" by P.A. Paskevich and T.B. Shea in Annals of Improbable Research vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 4-9, July/August 1995, concluded that a woodchuck can chuck 361.9237001 cubic centimeters of wood per day.)– GStoCommented Apr 1, 2011 at 13:36
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What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?
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You need the context first :(– user1249Commented Apr 4, 2011 at 15:23
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If you were to answer dishonestly, how would you answer this question?
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"Dishonestly" or "with aplomb"...– user4234Commented Aug 18, 2011 at 17:37
So I see that Fred A. Niedle was fired for woobling the wotsits. What do you think about the whole affair?
I'd expect an AI to try to Eliza it back to me somehow, and a human to respond with confusion or humour.
Ask a logical question which requires infinite recursion for evaluation and hope the programmers weren't smart enough to account for that kind of question.
Well most likely computer has problem answering an alternative to problem :
How are you feeling today? and go on with empathic conversation.
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4I think you should make up your mind on whether you prefer an "empathic" or a "pathetic" conversation ;-) Commented Apr 1, 2011 at 12:26
I'd ask something I've always wondered:
"Mary Ann or Ginger?"
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"When was the last time you prevaricated?"
Semantically it's a sensible question, and a computer would probably try and answer it, but a human being would just say - "Awee... c'mon.. how the hell would I know?"
Anything with that pattern, ie. linguistically, semantically, and culturally a sensible question, but something which no real person would ask, or answer. (This can be done, without going into deeply personal areas - in fact, the computer might be programmed to handle those with "that's private").
I would ask anything where there isn't a clear cut answer and which usually involves strong or varied opinions and/or emotions from human participants. For example:
- What do do you think of the current situation in Libya?
- What are your thoughts on the recent disaster in Japan?
- How do you think we should resolve the humanitarian crisis in the Ivory Coast?
- Why do you think Coldplay became so popular?
- What do you think about Charlie Sheen?
- What new technologies should we foresee in the next twenty years?
"Sorry I'm late. Got held up at my mother's funeral."
Would any intelligent being other than a human respond to that as a human would? I think not.
First: "Are you a programmer?"
If no, not a program.
If yes:
"Do you prefer emacs or vi?"
If that doesn't start a flamewar, it's a machine :)