 |
|
| CURRENT SECTION :: TechZone | UK's most visited IT Contractor Site - 250k unique visitors March 2008 |
|
 |
Six programmers are hoping to make history by proving computers are indistinguishable from humans and can actually ‘think’ and respond just like them. Under the Turing Test, a computer can be said ‘to think’ if it successfully fools a real person into believing it is human by way of its text-based responses on any subject. So far, programmers have only won $3,000 for coming close and none have scooped the first place prize of $100,000 for passing the test, thereby proving computers think. Named after the great mathematician Alan Turing, the test at the University of Reading on Sunday will involve three participants: a judge, a machine and a human. The task of the judge is to decide, using only text-based communication, which is the human and which is the machine after five minutes of interaction on spilt-screens. If the judge, a volunteer of varying age and technical ability, makes the wrong choice, or can’t decide, the machine, and its programmer, would have succeeded. Based on Turing’s criteria, a program needs only to make 30 per cent more of the judges unsure of its identity to pass the test, says Prof Kevin Warwick, test leader. The event is part of a competition, designed to advance the state of artificial intelligence, set up by Dr Hugh Loebner to take the Turing test because “no one had taken steps” to pass it. Speaking in 1990, Dr. Loebner pledged a grand prize of $100,000 and an 18-carat gold medal for the first computer whose responses were indistinguishable from a human's. Oct 7, 2008 Email this article Printer friendly page Previous Page
|
|
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| All content © Contractor UK Limited | [Register for News Letter] | [Privacy Statement] | [Terms of Use] | [Top of Page] |