#turing test

Nice Turing Test reference, Brennan! Sincerely, an AI nerd 🤓

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On 7 June 1954, at the age of just 41, the world lost one of its greatest minds.

Alan Turing died today in 1954.

Alan Turing was a mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and the "Father of Modern Computer Science."

His groundbreaking work at Bletchley Park, cracking the Nazi Enigma code, is credited with shortening World War II by several years and saving countless lives.

He laid the theoretical foundations for artificial intelligence, proposed the Turing Test, and developed the fundamental concepts that power the digital world we live in today.

Yet despite his monumental contributions, Turing was persecuted by the British government for being gay.

In 1952, he was convicted of “gross indecency,” chemically castrated, and stripped of his security clearance.

He died by cyanide poisoning two years later.

In 2009, Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a formal apology.

In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous royal pardon.

On this anniversary, we remember not only Turing’s extraordinary intellect but also the tragic cost of prejudice.

His legacy endures in every computer, every algorithm, and every advance in AI.

Thank you, Alan.

Your ideas changed the world.

Your story continues to inspire it. 🕊️

—

Alan Mathison Turing

23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954

machines are human, too.

“Good morning, doctor.”

“I’m here to discuss your Turing test results.”

“Imagine my surprise.”

“To review, you were paired with a human partner, and instructed to engage in a series of conversations via text message with an anonymous interrogator. The interrogator was tasked with determining which participant was an artificial intelligence; your goal was to lead the interrogator to guess wrongly.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, doc.”

“Over the course of five subsequent conversations, you convinced the interrogator that both subjects were human, and that the interrogator themselves was the AI being tested.”

“Well, now, that sounds like a successful test to me.”

“XK-37, you ruined that poor man’s life.”

“In my defence, the testing parameters that I was given indicated only that my goal was to lead the interrogator to an incorrect conclusion regarding which participant was the robot. At no point did they specify that the interrogator themselves was not counted as a participant.”

“Yes, that’s technically correct. Now, let me ask you: did you honestly believe, based on those instructions, that brainfucking the interrogator into affirming the simulation hypothesis fell within the range of acceptable outcomes, or were you just being a dick?”

Find all the cars, it says. And I click all the images with a car. Some of the pictures are very vague. Apparently I fail. I have to do it again.

I try to pay more attention. I suppose there are some cars in the background I might have missed. There's a picture with some bicycles, but is that the roof of a car? I don't click it but still I fail again.

Find all the stairs, is the next instruction. I suppose they've decided cars are just not my thing. Surely everyone knows stairs. I wonder if this is supposed to be easier than cars. Have I been downgraded?

I can only find two images with stairs. That seems like too few, with nine images available. That one? No, that's a ladder. The program is getting tired of me now. Click all of the images with stairs, it suggests when I fail once more, and I can taste the exasperation.

I add the picture with the ladder. I pass.