Computer passes Turing Test for first time by convincing judges it is a 13-year-old boy

Eugene Goostman seems like a typical 13-year-old Ukrainian boy — at least, that's what a third of judges at a Turing Test competition this Saturday thought. Goostman says that he likes hamburgers and candy and that his father is a gynecologist, but it's all a lie. This boy is a program created by computer engineers led by Russian Vladimir Veselov and Ukrainian Eugene Demchenko.

That a third of judges were convinced that Goostman was a human is significant — at least 30 percent of judges must be swayed for a computer to pass the famous Turing Test. The test, created by legendary computer scientist Alan Turing in 1950, was designed to answer the question "Can machines think?" and is a well-known staple of artificial intelligence studies.

Goostman passed the test at the Turing Test 2014 competition in London on Saturday, and the event's organizers at the University of Reading say it's the first computer succeed. Professor Kevin Warwick, a visiting professor at the university, noted in a release that "some will claim that the Test has already been passed." He added that "the words Turing Test have been applied to similar competitions around the world," but "this event involved the most simultaneous comparison tests than ever before, was independently verified and, crucially, the conversations were unrestricted."

I like your comments a lot. Similar to my thinking.

GK Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc developed the economic theory of Distributism. They said Socialism leads to slavery: it's bad. They said Capitalism leads (basically) to Socialism (they might have said Fascism, if they had known that word): they rejected Capitalism too. [NOTE: they did not reject the Free Market, but they saw that Big Business could corrupt Big Government and that Big Government would distort Big Business.] They looked for a moral economic path.

Distributism is sometimes criticized as socialism (as you said: we seem to go that way no matter what, but maybe we can get there in a pragmatic way). One possible result of Distributism is to give people some acres of farmland. You work the land. You own private property. You own the means of production. You are self-sufficient. You are free. And ... well ... if you screw up and really need help, hey, it's Post-Scarcity society, and, yeah, we have robots in factories that just kind of build stuff, so -- if you really, really need it -- we can ship you a new tractor, or a load of seeds for next year. You won't starve. No one starves. But, for your own self-worth, we do expect you to produce goods in a vineyard, an apple orchard, or a dairy operation. Show your value. Make a contribution.

Slightly different observation:

I often say that we are on a bad path to a new feudal age. People like Obama want to be lords living in castles up on a hill. They are creating a world were we are serfs laboring in the fields. I don't want to be a serf.

Now, in the Middle Ages, serfs owed their lords labor. You grew food as best you could (and lost some in taxes) and in addition, the system of corvee labor required that peasants built Cathedrals and other structures for part of the year. Europe had a lot of really awesome architecture, in part, because serfs had to provide labor to their lord -- so, why not build Notre Dame?

I can see a future in which people act like the Amish and just get together to build barns for each other, or dance halls for their community, or ponds so that people can add more fish to their diet. It's kind of like serfs providing corvee labor -- but maybe it's more pragmatic than anything else. Provide value. Build a decent community.

In a post-scarcity world where robots to the necessary work, we may have to look for ways that human labor can be seen as a good and moral contribution to our society.

The alternative I worry about it that we all live in a ghetto and have EBT cards. Full Stop. End of story. That's your life.

That would be bad.

I don't want to be a serf.

Last I heard, the heaviest worked serfs in England 600 years ago worked from 50-60 days to pay their rent, taxes, obligation to the laird, etc....

Last I looked, Tax Freedom Day (2012) was April 13th...

Using conventional unix Julian date conversion tools, that looks like 104 days.

And.... The aristocracy had to provide food and drink on feast days. Have you looked at how many feast days they got 600 years ago?

When is the last time your boss took you to lunch?

I'm not so sure about the serf thing. It's looking better all the time.

/johnny

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