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Every year there is a competition where a set of computer programs try and convince a set of judges that they are more human than a set of humans. This article is about a human participating in that competition and trying to figure out how to act so that he could convince the judges that he was indeed one of the humans.

It is incredibly interesting, looking at what sorts of behavior make us unique and what potential artificial intelligence has at being humanlike, and the techniques currently used.

While this is about computers it isn't a techy article.

Here's an excerpt:

Humphrys’s twist on the Eliza paradigm was to abandon the therapist persona for that of an abusive jerk; when it lacked any clear cue for what to say, MGonz fell back not on therapy clichés like “How does that make you feel?” but on things like “You are obviously an asshole,” or “Ah type something interesting or shut up.” It’s a stroke of genius because, as becomes painfully clear from reading the MGonz transcripts, argument is stateless—that is, unanchored from all context, a kind of Markov chain of riposte, meta-riposte, meta-meta-riposte. Each remark after the first is only about the previous remark. If a program can induce us to sink to this level, of course it can pass the Turing Test.

Once again, the question of what types of human behavior computers can imitate shines light on how we conduct our own, human lives. Verbal abuse is simply less complex than other forms of conversation. In fact, since reading the papers on MGonz, and transcripts of its conversations, I find myself much more able to constructively manage heated conversations. Aware of the stateless, knee-jerk character of the terse remark I want to blurt out, I recognize that that remark has far more to do with a reflex reaction to the very last sentence of the conversation than with either the issue at hand or the person I’m talking to. All of a sudden, the absurdity and ridiculousness of this kind of escalation become quantitatively clear, and, contemptuously unwilling to act like a bot, I steer myself toward a more “stateful” response: better living through science.

I love that the search for artificial intelligence in computers can shed light on how we as humans interact and show us a better way of "being human."

Mind vs. Machine

6 December 2011 02:00pm UTC • 50 views • 3 comments

Tagged with artificialintelligence, ai, computers, humans, humanness

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3 comments

1. Peon Peetie

   6 December 2011 07:36pm UTC

   this is an excellent article. i like, to, how it explains how basic AI interacts with people.

   but let's be honest... did you link to this only because of the joke the computer told?

   --

   Computer: How about telling me a joke?

   Judge: No.

   Computer: Here’s my favorite joke … A dog limps into a bar with a bloody bandage on his foot. He’s wearing a 10-gallon hat, six-shooters in his holsters and chaps. He growled, “I’m a-lookin’ for the man that shot my paw.”

2. Peon Peetie

   6 December 2011 08:00pm UTC

   some of the computer conversations are remarkably bad. i wonder if that's because i know they're computers?

   for example: http://fury.com/aoliza/chatframe.php?contender=fortytwo

3. Boatswain The Fool

   9 December 2011 07:27am UTC

   If you liked this article, the person who wrote it also wrote a book called The Most Human Human, which is basically an expanded version of the article.

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