More Artificial Stupidity, Coming Up…

Hey, whattaya know… they held another Turing Test, run by the man the A.I. cognoscente love to hate: Hugh Loebner. You of course know Lobner from John’s story at Salon about Loebner’s fight with the A.I. community.

And… surpise! A program that sucked at pretending to be a human being won… but as is the nature of these schemes, it was the program that sucked the least that took home the prize money. According to the Slashdot story, the bronze medal and $2000 boobie prize was awarded to ALICE, which has won three times in the past.

Alan Turing would be so proud…

You’ve probably heard of the Turing Test. You may have also read John’s story on Salon about the Loebner prize which purports to carry out the Turing test each year and award prizes. People labor over programs that try to pass for human, and fail miserably. Real AI guys have thrown up their hands in disgust and have disowned both the Loebner prize and apparently the Turing test itself.

But it appears they have all gone about it in the wrong way…

It’s actually an easy problem to solve.

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