WEBVTT - Who Was Alan Turing, and What's the Turing Test?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey brain

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<v Speaker 1>Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. The Turning test is legendary in

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<v Speaker 1>the field of artificial intelligence. First proposed by the visionary

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<v Speaker 1>British mathematician Alan Turning in a landmark nineteen fifty paper.

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<v Speaker 1>The test provides a practical and pretty fun way to

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<v Speaker 1>determine if a computer has achieved human levels of intelligence.

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<v Speaker 1>Turing called it the imitation game. If a computer, through

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<v Speaker 1>a text only chat, can convince a human that it's

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<v Speaker 1>a real person, then it passes the test. Simple in

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<v Speaker 1>theory but nearly impossible in practice. Turning came up with

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<v Speaker 1>the imitation game in response to colleagues and critics in

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<v Speaker 1>the late nineteen forties who insisted that a machine could

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<v Speaker 1>never be truly intelligent. But Turning had more faith in

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<v Speaker 1>these primitive new machines he called digital computers. That's because

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<v Speaker 1>Turing was the very first to envision something that we

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<v Speaker 1>take for granted today, a single machine that can be

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<v Speaker 1>programmed to do almost anything. Odds are yours sing to

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<v Speaker 1>this podcast on just such a machine? In brief, Alan

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<v Speaker 1>Turing was a British mathematician who came up with the

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<v Speaker 1>idea of modern computing, and whose code breaking played a

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<v Speaker 1>major role in the Allied victory over the Nazis in

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<v Speaker 1>World War Two. Also, he was a world class cross

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<v Speaker 1>country runner who may have qualified for the nineteen forty

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<v Speaker 1>Olympics if not for an injury. But his life was

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<v Speaker 1>also tragic due to prejudices of the time. He was

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<v Speaker 1>prosecuted in nineteen fifty two for having an affair with

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<v Speaker 1>another man home sexual acts being illegal in Britain until

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<v Speaker 1>nineteen sixty seven, and he accepted a form of chemical

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<v Speaker 1>castration as a condition of probation in order to avoid

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<v Speaker 1>jail time. His security clearance was revoked, ending his work

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<v Speaker 1>for the British government. He was found dead of cyanid

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<v Speaker 1>poisoning in nineteen fifty four, though it's still unclear whether

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<v Speaker 1>his death was a suicide or an accident. He was

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<v Speaker 1>pardoned of his conviction by Queen Elizabeth. The second Turing

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<v Speaker 1>was writing about computers well before any such thing existed.

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<v Speaker 1>Back in nineteen thirty six, he introduced the concept of

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<v Speaker 1>the univer soul computing machine and a dense mathematical paper

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<v Speaker 1>called on Computable Numbers with an application to the chitons problem.

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<v Speaker 1>This was a decade before the first electronic computer would

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<v Speaker 1>be built. Turning wrote, according to my definition, a number

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<v Speaker 1>is computable if its decimal can be written down by

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<v Speaker 1>a machine. It is possible to invent a single machine

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<v Speaker 1>which can be used to compute any computable sequence. Turing's

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<v Speaker 1>definition of computability of something that a computer can do

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<v Speaker 1>is what's known today as an algorithm. Turning was the

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<v Speaker 1>first to lay out the design framework of a machine

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<v Speaker 1>that could be programmed to run a series of discrete

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<v Speaker 1>algorithms in order to achieve a desired task. Other mathematicians

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<v Speaker 1>and engineers had toyed with calculating machines, most famously Charles

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<v Speaker 1>Babbage's nineteenth century analytical engine, but Turing envisioned a device

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<v Speaker 1>that wasn't limited to solving one kind of problem. We

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<v Speaker 1>spoke with Andrew Hodges, a mathematics professor at Oxford University

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<v Speaker 1>an author of Alan Turing The Enigma, the inspiration for

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<v Speaker 1>the Oscar winning film The Imitation Game. Hodges explained, anything

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<v Speaker 1>you can describe as an algorithm can be done by

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<v Speaker 1>one machine. The universal machine is essentially what we mean

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<v Speaker 1>by a computer, now, something on which you can store

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<v Speaker 1>the instructions and it carries them out, and no one

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<v Speaker 1>else had formalized that idea. From the start, Turns universal

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<v Speaker 1>machine was conceived as a very simplified form of artificial intelligence,

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<v Speaker 1>even though that term wouldn't be coined until ninety six.

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<v Speaker 1>Hodges says that the design of the universal machine was

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<v Speaker 1>meant to imitate the inner workings of the human mind,

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<v Speaker 1>a subject that fascinated Turing almost as much as mathematics.

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<v Speaker 1>In fact, when describing how his universal machine would work,

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<v Speaker 1>Turn used the term state of mind to label the

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<v Speaker 1>different read and write functions of the machine. In Turn's

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<v Speaker 1>conceptual machine, a length of tape is run through a

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<v Speaker 1>read write scanner. The tape is inscribed with bits of

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<v Speaker 1>information represented by symbols. The scanner head can either read

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<v Speaker 1>the symbols or write new ones according to its state

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<v Speaker 1>of mind. Turning wrote in his nineteen thirty six paper,

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<v Speaker 1>the operation actually performed is determined by the state of

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<v Speaker 1>mind of the computer and the observed symbols. In particular,

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<v Speaker 1>they determine the state of mind of the computer after

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<v Speaker 1>the operation is carried out. A decade later, when Turing

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<v Speaker 1>was leading the stalled British effort to build one of

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<v Speaker 1>the first electronic computers in nineteen forty six. He also

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<v Speaker 1>studied neurology and human physiology on the side. The result

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<v Speaker 1>was an internal paper published for the National Physical Laboratory

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<v Speaker 1>that modeled how a computer could be programmed to learn

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<v Speaker 1>on its own. Hod Just sees it as one of

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<v Speaker 1>the earliest proposals of what are now called neural networks,

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<v Speaker 1>a type of deep machine learning that's at the bleeding

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<v Speaker 1>edge of artificial intelligence. Turing wasn't the only person intrigued

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<v Speaker 1>by the similarities between human and machine intelligence. A surge

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<v Speaker 1>of new technologies developed during World War Two, including early computers,

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<v Speaker 1>space satellites, and nuclear power, had captured the intellectual and

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<v Speaker 1>public imagination. Hodges said, as soon as computer as are

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<v Speaker 1>mentioned at all, people are talking about electronic brains and

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<v Speaker 1>the possibility of the computer rivaling the brain. The nineteen

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<v Speaker 1>forty eight books Cybernetics by Norbert Wiener coined the prefix

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<v Speaker 1>cyber and wondered whether it would be possible to quote

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<v Speaker 1>construct a chess playing machine and whether this sort of

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<v Speaker 1>ability represents an essential difference between the potentialities of the

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<v Speaker 1>machine and the mind. Wiener concluded that such a machine

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<v Speaker 1>might very well be as good a player as the

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<v Speaker 1>vast majority of the human race. It was during this

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<v Speaker 1>era of excitement and nervous speculation about superintelligent machines the

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<v Speaker 1>Turning wrote Computing, Machinery and Intelligence, what Hodges calls one

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<v Speaker 1>of the most cited papers in philosophical literature. Turning begins,

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<v Speaker 1>I propose to consider the question can machines think? Then,

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<v Speaker 1>since the definitions of machine and think are ambiguous, Turning

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<v Speaker 1>narrows the scope of the question for his purposes. The

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<v Speaker 1>machine must be a digital computer, and the test of

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<v Speaker 1>whether or not it can think would be answered by

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<v Speaker 1>the imitation game. The game game, now known as the

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<v Speaker 1>Turning Test, is only mentioned briefly in the paper, and

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<v Speaker 1>Hodges says that Turing didn't take the details of the

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<v Speaker 1>test too seriously, publishing different versions in other papers. But

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<v Speaker 1>Turning did like the playful simplicity of it. Hodges said,

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<v Speaker 1>in a way he was making a drama out of it.

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<v Speaker 1>It presented this idea of the possibility of advanced artificial

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<v Speaker 1>intelligence in a way that engages people, and that ordinary

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<v Speaker 1>people would make the decision like a jury in a trial.

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<v Speaker 1>When the Turing Test was first published in nineteen fifty

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<v Speaker 1>Turning himself was confident that intelligent machinery, as he called it,

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<v Speaker 1>would be able to win the Invitation Game within fifty

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<v Speaker 1>to a hundred years. So will his predictions come true?

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<v Speaker 1>We already have super intelligent computers capable of outwitting the

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<v Speaker 1>smartest players in other types of games. IBM's Deep Blue

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<v Speaker 1>defeated the reigning chess champion Gary Kasparov, and Watson beat

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<v Speaker 1>the record breaking Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings in two thousand eleven.

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<v Speaker 1>But the Imitation Game raises the bar high on artificial intelligence,

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<v Speaker 1>and no computer has come close to convincing an ordinary

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<v Speaker 1>human that is one of us, at least not yet.

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<v Speaker 1>An annual contest called the Loebner Prize conducts its own

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<v Speaker 1>turing tests on the top chat bots to see if

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<v Speaker 1>the latest AI software could convince a panel of judges

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<v Speaker 1>that it's just as human as its human creators. None

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<v Speaker 1>of the chat bots have succeeded. The best performer, a

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<v Speaker 1>conversational chatbot called Mistaku, has only achieved a rating of

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<v Speaker 1>thirty three human, but when our writer Dave went online

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<v Speaker 1>to chat with her, he was impressed by her natural

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<v Speaker 1>language responses and deep knowledge, albeit probably too deep for

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<v Speaker 1>a typical dope human, he said. And when he asked

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<v Speaker 1>her if a chat bot will ever pass the Turing test,

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<v Speaker 1>she had the perfect answer, you be the judge of that.

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<v Speaker 1>Today's episode written by Dave Ruse and produced by Tyler Clang.

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<v Speaker 1>Brain Stuff is a production of I Heart Radios How

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<v Speaker 1>Stuff Works. For more in this and lots of other

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<v Speaker 1>intelligent topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com.

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