MUSE LOG: Are you a computer?    
 Are you a computer?7 comments
3 Feb 2004 @ 14:36, by Tom Bombadil

It is likely to be only a matter of time until a machine can truly act and behave as a "ditto" as imagined by David Brin in the previous post, and take over some of the tasks we now handle ourselves (those of us who don't have a personal assistant, that is), at least via some media.
While researching the previous topic The Musing Muse happened to stumble onto this related article that was introduced some time ago on NCN's Newslog, The Musing Muse also ran into the following piece about the Turing Test by David Joerg:

IN 1950, the British mathematician Alan M. Turing proposed a simple test to determine whether or not a computer could think as humans do. In this ingenious exercise, a human "interrogator" would question a subject in a remote location for five minutes. Once a computer placed in the remote location were able to fool its interrogator and pass as human, that computer will have achieved human sentience. Keep in mind Turing was used to the wooden, stultifying conversation patterns of British humans.

Turing predicted that by the year 2000 a computer would exist that could pass his test and pass itself off as human. Sick of hearing such smug predictions from the deceased British number-cruncher, we tested Dr. Turing’s test on a Dell PowerEdge 6400 with a 100MHz front side bus and 32KB level 1 cache running Microsoft Windows 2000 Server, connected to a T-3 line and placed in room 508 of the St. Ursala Assisted Living Facility outside Lawrence, Kansas.

Section I: Easy Questions
MH:
Hello. I’m going to ask you a few simple questions. State your name please.
Dell:
Simon III.
MH:
 Your full name?
Dell:
 Max Felix John Simon III.
MH:
 Where are you from?
Dell:
 I’m from… Belize.
MH:
 Have any family?
Dell:
 No.
MH:
 What happened to them?
Dell:
 …Earthquake.
MH:
 Sorry to hear. What do you do for a living?
Dell:
 Manufacturing.
MH:
 You mean you work in a factory, or you’re a supervisor?
Dell:
 Yes.

Section II: Psychology
MH:
 Please take out the pictures we emailed to you. What does the first one look like to you?
Dell:
 It looks like an ink splotch.
MH:
 Okay, but look deep into it, let your imagination run wild.
Dell:
 Two ink splotches.
MH:
 Deeper, wilder.
Dell:
 Actually, four ink splotches.
MH:
 Maybe you don’t understand. Look at these pictures, and then tell me what they remind you of. You know, like a butterfly, or a face. Try the second one.
Dell:
 Butterfly?
MH:
 Good! Now try the third.
Dell:
 Butterfly face.

Section III: Trick Questions
MH:
 It’s time to do the laundry. You need to wash a white t-shirt, a blue pinstriped button-down, a black turtleneck, and a red sweater with white polka dots. How many loads will you need to do?
Dell:
 Uh, but that could all fit in one load.
MH:
 Darks and lights in the same load?
Dell:
 Two loads would do it.

Section IV: Psychology Again
MH:
 Let’s play a little game. I’m going to say a word, and you say the next word that comes into your mind.
Dell:
 Sounds easy.
MH:
 Okay, here we go. "Dog."
Dell:
 Any member of a set of species including Canis familiaris or domesticated—
MH:
 No, no, no. I say a word, then you say what it makes you think of.
Dell:
 Oh, I get it. Try me again.
MH:
 Electricity.
Dell:
 Food.
MH:
 "Food"?
Dell:
 That’s what I thought of. Wouldn’t it be cool if electricity were not a dangerous threat to living tissue, but instead a filling meal? Of course, that’s not the case for humans like us.

Section V: Nap Time
MH:
 Are you a computer?
Dell:
 Nope.
MH:
 You’d be surprised how many fall for that one.
Dell:
 Not me.

Section VI: Math
MH:
 What’s fifty-six times thirty-three?
Dell:
 One thousand eight hundred forty-eight.
MH:
 You’re pretty fast!
Dell:
 Those are my favorite numbers.
MH:
 All right, how about five thousand and two divided by sixty-one?
Dell:
 Eighty-two.
MH:
 Right again! Are you some sort of math whiz?
Dell:
 Those are… more of my favorite numbers.

Section VII: Computer Science
MH:
 How good are you with computers?
Dell:
 About the same as an average person, I’d say. Yourself?
MH:
 Here’s an easy question. Let’s say you type the following program into a computer:
10 PRINT "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10
What do you think would happen?
Dell:
 Ha! Ha ha. Well, I… Um. I think— RRNNEEAAAAHH!!!
HELLO
HELLO
HELLO
HELLO
HELLO
HELLO
HELLO
HELLO
HELLO
HELLO
HELLO
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HELLO
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HELLO
HELLO
HELLO
HELLO
HELLO

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7 comments

3 Feb 2004 @ 15:48 by Aiden @69.33.46.10 : #In the beginning was the computer
#And God said
:Let there be light!
#You have not signed on
:God.
#Enter user password.
:Omniscient.
#Password Incorrect. Try again!
:Omnipotent.
#Password Incorrect. Try again!
:Technocrat.
#And God signed on 12:01 a.m., Sunday, March 1.
:Let there be light!
#Unrecognizable command. Try again!
:Create light.
#Done.
:Run heaven and earth.
#And God created Day and Night. And God saw there were 0 errors.
#And God signed off at 12:02 a.m., Sunday, March 1.
#And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Monday, March 2.
:Let there be firmament in the midst of the water and
#Unrecognizable command! Try again!
:Create firmament.
#Done.
:Run firmament.
#And God divided the waters. And God saw there were 0 errors.
#And God signed off at 12:01 a.m., Monday, March 2.
#And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Tuesday, March 3.
:Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place and let
the
dry land appear and
#Too many characters in string specification! Try again.
:Create dryland.
#Done!
:Run dryland.
#And God created Earth and Seas. And God saw there were 0 errors.
#And God signed off at 12:01 a.m., Tuesday, March 3.
#And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Wednesday, March 4.
:Create lights in the firmament to divide the day from the night.
#Unspecified type. Try again!
:Create sunmoonstars.
#And God created Sun, Moon, Stars. And God saw there were 0 errors.
#And God signed off at 12:01 a.m., Wednesday, March 4.
#And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Thursday, March 5.
:Create fish.
#Done.
:Create fowl.
#Done.
:Run fish'nfowl.
#And God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that
creepeth wherewith the waters swarmed after its kind and every winged
fowl after its kind.
0 errors.
#And God signed off at 12:01 a.m., Thursday, March 5.
#And God signed on at 12:00 a.m., Friday, March 6.
:Create cattle.
#Done.
:Create creepy things.
#Done.
:Now let us make man in our image.
#Unspecified type! Try again.
:Create man.
#Done.
:Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over of the fowl of the air and
over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.
#Too many command operands! Try again.
:Run multiplication.
#Execution terminated. 6 errors.
:Insert breath.
#O.K.
:Run multiplication.
#Execution terminated. 5 errors.
:Move man to Garden of Eden.
#File Garden of Eden does not exist.
:Create Gard.En.
#Done.
:Move man to Gard.En.
#O.K.
:Run multiplication.
#Execution terminated. 4 errors.
:Copy woman from man.
#O.K.
:Run multiplication.
#Execution terminated. 3 errors.
:Insert woman into man.
#Illegal parameters. Try again!
:Insert man into woman.
#O.K.
:Run multiplication.
#Execution terminated. 2 errors.
:Create desire.
#Done.
:Run multiplication.
#And God saw man'nwoman being fruitful and multiplying in the Gard.En.
#Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.
:Create freewill.
#Done.
:Run freewill.
#And God saw man'nwoman being fruitful and multiplying in the Gard.En.
#Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.
:Undo desire.
#Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created.
:Destroy freewill.
#Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
#Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.
:Help!
#Desire cannot be undone once freewill is created.
#Freewill is an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
#Enter replacement, cancel, or ask for help.
:Create Treeofknowledge.
#And God saw man'nwoman being fruitful and multiplying in the Gard.En.
#Warning: No time limit on this run. 1 errors.
:Create good'nevil.
#Done.
:Activate evil.
#And God saw he had created shame.
#Warning: System error in sector E95. Man'nwoman not in Gard.En.
#1 errors.
:Scan Gard.En. for man'nwoman.
#Man'nwoman cannot be located. Try again!
:Search Gard.En. for man'nwoman.
#Search failed.
:Delete shame.
#Shame cannot be deleted once evil has been activated.
:Destroy freewill.
#Freewill an inaccessible file and cannot be destroyed.
:Stop!
#Unrecognizable command. Try again.
:Break
:Break
:Break
#ATTENTION ALL USERS: SERVER GOING DOWN IN 5 MINS FOR REGULAR
DAY OF MAINTENANCE AND REST. PLEASE SIGN OFF NOW.
:Create new world.
#You have exceeded your allotted file space. You must destroy old files
before new ones can be created.
:Destroy earth.
#Destroy earth. Please confirm.
#SERVER SHUTTING DOWN. SERVICES WILL RESUME ON SUNDAY MARCH 8
AT 6:00 A.M. YOU MUST SIGN OFF NOW!
#And God signed off at 11:59 p.m., Friday, March 6.

— God's genesis.log from God's UNIX machine (Unix humor)  

4 Feb 2004 @ 00:38 by shawa : Lol!
Made my day!
(I´m not a computer.)
;-)  

4 Feb 2004 @ 19:19 by bombadil : Not a computer? Oh Pooh! ;-)
Either way, hehehe, I doubt anyone in this room (human, computer or chimera) would hold it against you if you were—not in the playground of The Muse, where "anything goes" (and "possibilities are endless"?) or so it says.

Biotechnology at the Margins of Personhood: an Evolving Legal Paradigme  

8 Feb 2004 @ 14:21 by swan : another LOL!
If God shuts off the computer for the night, where do all God's Creatures go :-)  

8 Feb 2004 @ 14:22 by swan : And,
if I don't sign off when God does, do I become God :-)  

8 Feb 2004 @ 14:23 by swan : Nope,
I am not a computer either....  

23 Feb 2004 @ 14:01 by Hanae @69.33.46.10 : Research vs. Financing
Artificial Intelligence has been essentialy focusing on lucrative domain specific applications, which do not necessarily require the full extent of AI capabilities. This limit of machine intelligence is known to researchers as "narrow intelligence."

Regardless, it seems highly probabable that artificial machines will eventually be capable of intelligent thought in the near future. Those machines may be pure silicon, quantum computers or hybrid combinations of manufactured components and neural tissue. It's just a matter of time, thinks the AI adept.  

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