AI Researchers Say 'Rascals' Might Pass Turing Test

An anonymous reader writes "Passing the Turing test is the holy grail of artificial intelligence (AI) and now researchers claim it may be possible using the world's fastest supercomputer (IBM's Blue Gene). This version of the Turing test pits a human conversing with a synthetic character powered by Rascals software crafted at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. RPI is aiming to pass AI's final exam this fall, by pairing the most powerful university-based supercomputing system in the world with its new multimedia group which is designing a holodeck, a la Star Trek."

The Loebner Prize

[Anonymous Coward]

Limiting the topic: In order to limit the amount of area that the contestant programs must be able to cope with, the topic of the conversation was to be strictly limited, both for the contestants and the confederates. The judges were required to stay on the subject in their conversations with the agents.

Limiting the tenor: Further, only behavior evinced during the course of a natural conversation on the single specified topic would be required to be duplicated faithfully by the contestants. The operative rule precluded the use of ``trickery or guile. Judges should respond naturally, as they would in a conversation with another person.'' (The method of choosing judges served as a further measure against excessive judicial sophistication.)

The reason for the holodeck reference

[chriss]

One of the problems for any entity trying to communicate like a human is that we share some common knowledge which is based on our physical existence (pigs can't fly, but fall etc.) Some AI projects like (Open)Cyc [wikipedia.org] have tried to feed their AI with a very large number of simple facts, but to "understand" some concepts you have to experience them. Try to explain the difference between red and blue to someone who was born blind.

The 3D communication (holodeck) aspect mentioned is therefore an attempt to have an AI "living" in a human like space, to enable it to develop a similar world view. What's new about Rascals (Rensselaer Advanced Synthetic Architecture for Living Systems) seems to be something else ("Rascals is based on a core theorem proving engine that deduces results (proves theorems) about the world after pattern-matching its current situation against its knowledge base.") that is very computing intensive. Whether this will make any real difference remains to be seen, a lot of other approaches have failed and they so far have only succeeded with very limited models.

Re:yes, but is it really intelligent?

[ArcherB]

That's like saying, "take a human baby, put him in front of an Internet kiosk. Make sure the baby has no nervous system or brain of any kind. Once he figures out how to use his eyes and fingers, and starts googling for porn, you have true natural intelligence". Your requirements are way too restrictive; no human would pass them.

My baby figured out how to use her hands and eyes all on her own. All we had to do is provide her with the necessities for life (food and diaper changing). She had the whole hair pulling thing down in no time!

As for a computer, you give it the necessities for life... power and cooling. Let it figure the rest out. I guess I'll give a little and say you can help it along some. Maybe give it a dictionary on the HDD or something and maybe teach it to read. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to stick to the no BIOS, no OS thing. People figure out their hardware on their own. Until a machine can do the same, it will be lacking.

Japanese does have a case system

[Reality Master 201]

Japanese is a pro-drop language, in that you can leave out subjects or objects in speech if it's clear from discourse what you're talking about.

But Japanese definitely has a case system where the inflectional morphology is indicated by particles that follow the modified noun.

Re:yes, but is it really intelligent?

[grahamd0]

Actually, Voight-Kampff tested for emotional responses (or lack thereof), not intelligence. I don't think there was ever a question as to whether or not replicants were intelligent.

Re:yes, but is it really intelligent?

[fmobus]

Get your words right! A turing machine [wikipedia.org] is a hypothetical computer theory device used in the basic definitions of computation and algorithm. The program you design is one designed to (attempt to) pass the turing test [wikipedia.org]. Yours Truly, -- Comp. Sci. Nazi Association of America

Re:yes, but is it really intelligent?

[Workaphobia]

You're reaching levels of fallacy reserved for religious fanatics and René Descartes*. The phrase "on her/their own" is extremely misleading, as it presumes a lot about the identity of the systems in question. (If you still wish to argue this point then I strongly recommend clarifying what you mean by this phrase.) You have no business equating life support to power and cooling without allowing the same analogy between the instincts built into the nervous system and the initial boot code executed by a CPU.

* "Meditations on First Philosophy" sucks and I want the whole world to know it!

Re:The Loebner Prize

[Metasquares]

No one is claiming this is a real turing test

Headline: "AI Researchers Say 'Rascals' Might Pass Turing Test" :)

I think the article is blowing the researchers' (likely more modest) claims out of proportion, but that just makes the article misleading.