I was struck by the prescience and clarity of Mitch Kapor's writing. He correctly predicted that a computer would be able to win on Jeopardy [0], 9 years before the fact. And he understood that the Turing Test was more of a thought experiment than an actual test [1], which is why I assume he took the bet in the first place.<p>Conversation is actually a rather poor measure of intelligence. I would say, show me a computer that can learn <i>anything</i> that it wasn't specifically programmed to learn. This doesn't mean unsupervised categorization or learning to play a video game. I'm talking about a scenario where programmers present their code or machine with no knowledge of what the task will be. Not something chosen from a known list of possibilities, but any task that a human could conceivably be taught to perform in less than an hour. Anything from writing a sonnet in iambic pentameter to assembling ikea furniture based on instructions. A true test of _general_ intelligence.<p>I would take that long bet out to 2129, and beyond. I don't see software with that level of intellectual flexibility being written in our lifetimes, or the lifetimes of our children or their children.<p>[0] "While it is possible to imagine a machine obtaining a perfect score on the SAT or winning Jeopardy..."<p>[1] "... a skeptic about machine intelligence could fairly ask how and why the Turing Test was transformed from its origins as a provocative thought experiment by Alan Turing to a challenge seriously sought."
Can anybody point me to the papers where scientists have actually "reverse engineered (...) regions of the brain" or present "highly detailed mathematical models of (...) neurons"?<p>As far as I know, research in those directions is nowhere near as sophisticated as Kurzweil tries to make us believe. The mathematical models for neurons I've seen may reproduce some firing statistics, but they are not at all suitable for actually modelling behavior of a system in response to a stimulus.
The Turing Test is a thought experiment, not an actual test. No machine will ever pass because that is fundamentally a misunderstanding of the Turing Test.
They made this bet in 2002, so we're almost halfway to 2029. Does anyone (other than Kurzweil) seriously think a Turning Test-passing machine is just over the horizon?<p>(And no, contrived scenarios with computers pretending to be foreign children don't count[0])<p>[0] <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/06/10/did-eugene-goostman-pass-the-turing-test/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/06/10/did-eugene-goostman-p...</a>
The more I think about the Turing Test, the more flawed (or hackable) I see it. What if instead of improving the computer I go the other way around and I put a disabled human (like an autistic or something) behind the curtain? This may certainly exhibit a very unnatural model of thought and make the computer harder to identify. If however, such hack would be prevented by the fact that the judge is the one that chooses his human subject for the test, like they knowing each other to some degree, then the test becomes more of a challenge to recognize the specifics that one particular person may have in relations with not only computers but other humans as well!
The turing test must have an adversarial component. E.g. For any competition with X entrants, the computer candidate must be compared against <i>one of the other human entrant team member</i>, randomly selected. If the other entrant is (correctly) identified as the human, a fraction of the year's prize, say 1/X, goes to the adversarial team, and the candidate is barred from winning that year.
If you change it to a five minute interview instead of two hours then less than five years.<p>Anyway it will happen pretty soon and then people will just say it wasn't a good test.
If a computer can convince judges that it is human, then it can also convince judges that it is sentient. If it is convincingly sentient, is it moral to program it?
Isn't anyone else curious about this "long now foundation"?<p>I mean for one thing the bet is just as much about the turing test as it is whether or not you believe this foundation is going to exist in 2029.<p>It also seems like they take all the bet money and then invest it while they're waiting to pay out. Seems like a pretty sweet deal.