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Alan Turing. Photo credit: AFP/Getty Images
Artificial Intelligence took a huge leap forward over the weekend as one computer program sufficiently passed the Turing Test, a method used to examine the effectiveness of AI programs. Alan Turing, a computer scientist and WWII codebreaker, developed the test in 1950. If a computer is able to fool 30 percent of users in a conversation into thinking it is a human, then that computer should be considered intelligent.
The Independent reports that a computer program convinced 33 percent of participants that it was a 13-year-old boy from Odessa, Ukraine. Russian scientists created the program, named Eugene Goostman, which is the first to ever pass the test. "Our main idea was that he can claim that he knows anything, but his age also makes it perfectly reasonable that he doesn't know everything...We spent a lot of time developing a character with a believable personality," co-creator Vladimir Veselov told The Independent.
Spurred by comments from one participating professor, many outlets have speculated that this changes the field of computing in many ways—perhaps most importantly "cybercrime." That threat is a real one, but it's hard not to marvel at what this could mean for computing going forward.
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Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough.
