Turing test beaten for first time by virtual 13-year-old boy

theguardian.com

4 points·Bayesianblues··2 comments

I only hope they didn't "downgrade" the expectations of the testers by insisting he was a 13-year-old boy, thus some of his answers might not make sense!

Although the Turing Test is a theoretical challenge with no clear technical and objective benchmarks to achieve, it should not be downplayed. Although this is a remarkable achievement, I will wait until they beat a virtual adult of postgraduate level!

I just posted this elsewhere, but thought it applies here too:

I've often wondered if the Turing Test has been decoupled from signifying its original goal due to an instance of Goodhart's Law; namely, "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

Surely the ability to trick a human into believing an AI is a human is a milestone, but it was with an AI specifically optimized for this task. The deeper question is if the passing of the Turing Test in this case means we should ascribe consciousness to the bot, and I think none of us are willing to affirm it yet. I would suggest that this discrepancy is caused by the “measure becoming a target” and losing its ability to be a “good measure.” I guess this is why there is such a critical distinction between Artificial Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence, which is where the Turing Test would have more weight.

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