Alan Turing is in the news. A British mathematician of World War II renown, he devised a test that now goes by his name. If a machine is indistinguishable from a human in text-based conversation, then it is “thinking.” The so-called artificial intelligence revolves around this proposition. Apparently, a computer program mimicking a boy of thirteen just passed Turing test by fooling more than a third of human interlocutors into believing it was human. The program was devised by a Russian who lives in the States and a Ukrainian who lives in Russia. There were previous claims that the test was passed, but a “true” Turing test does not set the questions or topics prior to the conversation. In spite of my unflagging interest in artificial intelligence ever since my youth, I am not impressed. Artificial life is the real challenge for the human species. If a machine is indistinguishable from a human being in lovemaking, then it is “living.” The first machine that passes Bon test will be worth talking about for millennia. And I bet that intelligence will play a minor rôle in its performance.

Addendum (June 9, 2017)

This piece is very much to my liking to this day. If there is any meaningful direction for artificial intelligence or AI, it is artificial life or AL. But the world seems to be tilting toward artificial reality or AR. Among other high-tech companies of renown, Apple is squarely behind it as of late. Although they call it augmented reality, it is only words. At any rate, AR is ultimately about entertainment, whereas AL is about real life. The way the world is going, AR may well become the pinnacle of capitalist development, while AL may need to wait for a few more attempts at civilization by the human species. But AR will never pass Bon test. Entertainment is nothing but entertainment, after all. Not even a fool can be tricked by it.