Man Versus Computer
"I propose to consider the question 'Can machines think?'"
Thus began mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing's 1950 seminal paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence. In his paper, Turing proposed an experiment. A small group of judges would conduct five-minute conversations via an instant chat program on a computer with pairs of humans, termed confederates, and robots. The judge's task would be to determine which discussant was human and which a computer.
Turing predicted that by the year 2000, computers would be able to fool 30% of judges after five minutes of conversation. Each year since 1991, the Turing test has been administered in a competition called the Loebner Prize. Thus far, Turing's prediction has not come to pass -- though at the 2008 competition, the top-scoring computer program missed the 30% mark by just one vote.
Author Brian Christian, writing in The Atlantic, has an exceptionally fascinating article describing his experience as one of the confederates in the 2009 administration of the Turing Test. One especially thought-provoking passage from his article:
Philosophers, psychologists, and scientists have been puzzling over the essential definition of human uniqueness since the beginning of recorded history. The Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert says that every psychologist must, at some point in his or her career, write a version of what he calls “The Sentence.” Specifically, The Sentence reads like this:
The human being is the only animal that ______.
The story of humans’ sense of self is, you might say, the story of failed, debunked versions of The Sentence. Except now it’s not just the animals that we’re worried about.
We once thought humans were unique for using language, but this seems less certain each year; we once thought humans were unique for using tools, but this claim also erodes with ongoing animal-behavior research; we once thought humans were unique for being able to do mathematics, and now we can barely imagine being able to do what our calculators can.
We might ask ourselves: Is it appropriate to allow our definition of our own uniqueness to be, in some sense, reactive to the advancing front of technology? And why is it that we are so compelled to feel unique in the first place?
Try filling in the blank: The human being is the only animal that ______. Then go read the article and reconsider the question with fresh eyes.
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Sep '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
Humans are the only animal that defaults on a mortgage debt.
May '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
Humans are the only beings which choose to be.
And I don't mean choose to live. I mean we choose who, even what, we become. Free will is unique, though it is not a necessary condition of humanity (think of babies, for example).
Another unique quality is humanity's favor in the eyes of our Creator, but I will not try to prove that to anyone.
May '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
Animals are the only animals that can detect a mistyped sentence and then correct in their own minds.
Jul '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
Animals are the only animal that are animals.
Re: Man Versus Computer
outstripp: Animals are the only animals that can detect a mistyped sentence and then correct in their own minds. · Feb 17 at 6:21
Jimmy Carter: Animals are the only animal that are animals. · Feb 17 at 6:32pm
So that's why they call it "human error." ;)
Oct '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
Try this... Computers do not eat people, people eat people.. So far...
As for ... The human being is the only animal that ______. Thought up various positions in which to procreate... True that...
Sep '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
Reading the Brian Christian article made me paranoid.
How do I know that some among us here at Ricochet are not just sophisticated Turing Test machines?
How do I know that liberal programmers haven't sprinkled MGonz's in chat rooms throughout the internet in an effort to dispirit conservatives?
The human being is the only animal that knows he is going to die someday, and who is striving for immortality by fiddling with AI in a vain attempt to live forever.
Edited on Feb 17, 2011 at 8:38pmJan '11
Re: Man Versus Computer
Humans are the only animals that aspire to be God.
Oct '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
Take that premise to a Mountain Gorilla, you both have opposeable thumbs, work it out...
Aug '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
Humans are the only animals that program systems of logic.
Find a monkey who doesn't just act logically but understands logic itself to be a distinct and manipulatable thing, and you've got your missing link.
Find a computer which understands logic as logic, and not just as a set of its own pre-programmed constraints, and you've got your self-aware Skynet robot overlords.
Jan '11
Re: Man Versus Computer
BlueAnt: Humans are the only animals that program systems of logic.
Find a monkey who doesn't just act logically but understands logic itself to be a distinct and manipulatable thing, and you've got your missing link.
Find a computer which understands logic as logic, and not just as a set of its own pre-programmed constraints, and you've got your self-aware Skynet robot overlords. · Feb 17 at 8:00pm
"I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords." - Ken Jennings, after getting clobbered by Watson on Jeopardy!, prior to Judgement Day.
Geometric learning is just a hop, skip and a jump away, my friend. If you're reading this post, you are the Resistance...
Jul '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
Ahnold is back in the movie business, after all.
Edited on Feb 17, 2011 at 8:31pmRe: Man Versus Computer
Humans are the only animals capable of sustaining the success of Kim Kardashian.
Oct '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
There are only 10 kinds of things that understand binary; people and computers.
Could a computer invent a human?
The story behind Watson
Oct '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
"The human being is the only animal that uses language or tools, or does mathematics."
"We once thought humans were unique for using language, but this seems less certain each year; we once thought humans were unique for using tools, but this claim also erodes with ongoing animal-behavior research; we once thought humans were unique for being able to do mathematics, and now we can barely imagine being able to do what our calculators can" is a sentence that could only be written by someone ignorant of what language, tools, and mathematics are, or by someone overly impressed by the rhetorical tools employed by those with an anti-human axe to grind. Consider that humans learn other languages, but no human knows any other animal language; that no other animal tools have resulted in the construction of a great ______ society, and that no computer has created a new branch of mathematics.
Human uniqueness being a challenge to describe doesn't mean it isn't real.
May '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
Speaking of Turing, Charles Petzold has written "The Annotated Turing", a guided tour through Turing's (1936) "On computable numbers..." It's mostly above my pay grade, but still worth perusing.
Jul '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
Where is John Henry when we need him?
Jan '11
Re: Man Versus Computer
Wait ... you mean we can manufacture intelligence? Thank goodness. We were running out of the intelligence found naturally in human beings. </sarcasm off>
Edited on Feb 18, 2011 at 5:11amJul '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
This just goes to show that almost 30% of the selected people are quite emotionally unaware.
Nov '10
Re: Man Versus Computer
The human being is only animal that can mistakenly deny that it is the only animal that can do a variety of things that other animals cannot do.
Parse that sentence, Nim Chimpsky.
Edited on Feb 18, 2011 at 6:40am