Even Better Than the Real Thing

This is interesting and kind of sad. There’s this contest every year to see who can write the best chat bots to imitate people.

This all stems from Alan Turing’s observation that surely one good way to know a machine was truly “intelligent” was that it could hold a conversation with a real person and that person would be unable to distinguish whether in fact their chat partner was real or synthetic. This of course neatly sidesteps the Zombie Problem of Psychology — in that even if someone gives all the right answers how do you know there really is conscious experience happening within their head? Or in fact if there is such a distinct thing as conscious experience?

Here’s a transcript of a typical session with one of these chat bots. Now, the level of repartee this software program evidences here is so far above what passes for communication in typical chat rooms — all that a/s/l and LADEEZ???? mindlessness — that I have no option but to conclude that most people online are, in fact, morons who would fail the Turing Test. They are not even zombies… zombies can have some style.