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Passing the Turing Test Does Not Mean the End of Humanity Passing the Turing Test Does Not Mean the End of Humanity Warwick, K & Shah, H Author post-print (accepted) deposited by Coventry University’s Repository Original citation & hyperlink: Warwick, K & Shah, H 2016, 'Passing the Turing Test Does Not Mean the End of Humanity' Cognitive Computation, vol 8, no. 3. DOI: 10.1007/s12559-015-9372-6 https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12559-015-9372-6 DOI 10.1007/s12559-015-9372-6 ISSN 1866-9956 ESSN 1866-9964 Publisher: Springer The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12559- 015-9372-6 Copyright © and Moral Rights are retained by the author(s) and/ or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This item cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder(s). The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. This document is the author’s post-print version, incorporating any revisions agreed during the peer-review process. Some differences between the published version and this version may remain and you are advised to consult the published version if you wish to cite from it. Passing the Turing Test Does Not Mean the End of Humanity Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry, CV1 5FB, UK Email: [email protected] , [email protected] Corresponding author: Kevin Warwick, tele: 44-247765-9893 Abstract: In this paper we look at the phenomenon that is the Turing test. We consider how Turing originally introduced his imitation game and discuss what this means in a practical scenario. Due to its popular appeal we also look into different representations of the test as indicated by numerous reviewers. The main emphasis here however is to consider what it actually means for a machine to pass the Turing test and what importance this has, if any. In particular does it mean that, as Turing put it, a machine can ‘think’. Specifically we consider claims that passing the Turing test means that machines will have achieved human-like intelligence and as a consequence the singularity will be upon us in the blink of an eye. Keywords: Deception Detection, Natural Language, Turing’s Imitation Game, Chatbots, Machine Misidentification ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Figure 1: Harjit Mehroke for Figure 1a; C.D. Chapman for Figure 1b. INTRODUCTION There are those who believe that passing the Turing test means that Human-level intelligence will have been achieved by machines (Ingram, 2014). The direct consequence of this, as pointed out by Kurzweil (Kurzweil, 2006) and others, is that the singularity will be upon us thereby resulting in the demise of the human race. In this paper we do not wish to dispute the latter of these arguments, dramatic though it is. What we do wish to dispel however is the assumption which links passing the Turing test with the achievement for machines of human-like or human-level intelligence. Unfortunately the assumed chain of events which means that passing the Turing test sounds the death knell for humanity appears to have become engrained in the thinking in certain quarters. One interesting corollary of this is that when it was announced in 2014 that the Turing test had been finally passed (Warwick and Shah, 2015b) there was an understandable response from those same quarters that it was not possible for such an event to have occurred, presumably because we were still here in sterling health to both make and debate the pronouncement. Interestingly the main academic argument which was thrown up was that the machine which passed the test did not exhibit human-like intelligence therefore the test could not have been passed. Consider this, for example, from Murray Shanahan of Imperial College London: “Of course the Turing Test hasn’t been passed…We are still a very long way from achieving human-level AI” (Ingram, 2014). It is therefore, we feel, of vital importance that we look various aspects of this question. Because if Murray Shanahan and Ray Kurzweil and their colleagues are correct then the developers of the computer programmes which compete in the Turing test are, if they are successful, about to put an end to the human race. So shouldn’t we do something about such developers, maybe lock them up, well away from any laptop in case they design a programme of destruction. On the other hand dare we suggest that either Shanahan or Kurzweil is incorrect? The singularity (Kurzweil, 2006) is an event dependent on the overall improvement and power of Artificial Intelligence where intelligent machines can design successive generations of increasingly more powerful machines, eventually creating intelligence that firstly is equivalent to that of humans and then surpasses it. Indeed the capabilities of such an Artificial Intelligence may well be impossible for a human to comprehend. The singularity is the point beyond which events are beyond the control of humans, resulting either in humans upgrading (with implants) to become Cyborgs or with intelligent machines taking control. Either way, it’s not good news for ordinary humans. Taking a sensible look at this issue, and someone needs to, we wish to analyse why, with the ‘standard Turing test’ (Figure 1b) {defined as five minutes, unrestricted question-answer simultaneous comparison version (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2011) - having been passed – more than 30% of the human interrogators fail to correctly identify the machine} we are all still here and this paper can be read by (presumably) humans. The flaw in the Shanahan/Kurzweil argument, at this time, we contest is that Shanahan is just plain wrong. Passing the Turing test has no relationship with human-like intelligence (or AI) other than in the sense of a machine possibly being reasonably effective in its own version of human conversation for a sustained short period, over which time it has proved to be successful in fooling a collection of humans. Kurzweil’s singularity argument may or may not also be wrong, but that’s not what we wish to discuss here. The point is that as long as one of the Shanahan/Kurzweil pair is wrong then the human race is still looking good (apart from its multitude of other problems that is). What we wish to do in this paper is to take a look at what the Turing test actually is, as stipulated/set out by Alan Turing, rather than to consider some related test which some might wish to call the Turing test or what someone might want the test to be, because they’ve thought of a different/better test. We acknowledge here that different/better tests of computer ability, even in terms of only conversation, exist but again they are not the subject of this paper. So we stick as closely as possible to what the test is, based entirely on Turing’s own words. We acknowledge however that there are different interpretations of the test, whether each test should last 5 minutes or 10 minutes for example or even if Turing intended the test as some sort of mind modelling exercise. However none of these, we argue, result in the end of humanity. Indeed Turing himself said that humans would be needed to maintain the machines (Turing, 1947). We then subsequently present some example discourses, taken from a series of tests held at the Royal Society in 2014. One of these involves the machine Eugene Goostman which actually passed the test at that event. Following this we look at some ways in which machines can pass the test, as it has been defined in terms of the standard definition (Sterrett, 2000). Finally we draw some conclusions. One of which, and some might argue perhaps the most important, is that humanity is not about to expire. To be clear though we are aware that different theories regarding the Turing test and its meaning exist and that other theories have been put forward along the lines that machines will not take over from humans. In this paper we are explicitly only concerned with the pairing of statements that says (a) passing the Turing test means that human-level intelligence will have been achieved in AI and (b) when AI exhibits human-level intelligence that will mean the end of humanity as we know it. We are only too aware, for example, that in describing his test, Turing discussed men and women as hidden entities and the possibility of gender blur. Whilst this is extremely interesting, it is not what we wish to look at in this paper. We focus here entirely on one specific issue which is that if both Shanahan and Kurzweil are correct then a machine passing the Turing test means that humanity is doomed! THE TURING TEST In his 1950 paper entitled ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ (Turing, 1950), Alan Turing started by considering the question, "Can machines think?" However, rather than get bogged down with definitions of both of the words "machine" and "think" he replaced the question with one based on a much more practical scenario, namely his imitation game. The game has since become more widely known, particularly in the popular domain, as the Turing test. He did not however, at any point, refer to his test/game as being any indication of intelligence, human-like or otherwise. Turing (1952) described the game as follows: “The idea of the test is that a machine has to try and pretend to be a man, by answering questions put to it, and it will only pass if the pretence is reasonably convincing.
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