Subject: The Turing Test
Date: Sat, Aug 4 2001 00:00:05 -0400

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.

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:	No, 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: 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 IV: Nap Time

MH:	Are you a computer?
Dell:	Nope.
MH:	You'd be surprised how many fall for that one.
Dell:	Not me.

Section V: Math