Is this the first step to Skynet becoming sentient? For the first time, a computer program has passed the Turing test by convincing human judges that it was a real human.
Computing pioneer Alan Turing said that a computer could be understood to be thinking if it passed the test, which requires that a computer dupes 30 per cent of human interrogators in five-minute text conversations.
Eugene Goostman, a computer programme made by a team based in Russia, succeeded in a test conducted at the Royal Society in London. It convinced 33 per cent of the judges that it was human, said academics at the University of Reading, which organised the test.
The one part that may give us some comfort is that the human in this case is a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy. I’d be a little more scared of computers taking over when they fool people into thinking they are an adult with experience and a fully-developed developed personality. Read more about the program at The Independent.
"It's not a "supercomputer," it's a chatbot. It's a script made to mimic human conversation. There is no intelligence, artificial or not involved. It's just a chatbot."
More at Techdirt.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140609/07284327524/no-computer-did-not-pass-turing-test-first-time-everyone-should-know-better.shtml