The Turing Test of Machine Consciousness

The Turing Testof

Machine Consciousness

Derek J. SMITHCentre for Psychology

University of Wales Institute, Cardiff

dsmith@uwic.ac.uk http://www.smithsrisca.demon.co.uk

An Educational Resource in UWIC's

"Psychology as a Career"Academic Video Series

DEDICATION

This presentation has been inspired by theWelsh Assembly Government's Reaching Higher - Reaching

Wider initiative for the modernisation of Welsh post-16 education, the H.E. Funding Council for Wales' FIRST

Campus initiative for promoting the university experience to groups who would not normally consider it an option,

and UWIC's own Widening Access Provision scheme.

As screened at the

2005 Christmas Lectureof the

South Wales Branch of the British Computer Society

Cardiff Bay Techniquest, 1st December 2005

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

The idea of artificial intelligence is not new. Here, from around 1500, is Leonardo da Vinci's design for an android.

This android never actually got made (this is just an artist's impression), because scientists at that time didn't know enough about computing to give it a mind of its own.

They still don't.

SO WHAT ACTUALLY IS THINKING?

IS IT CALCULATION, PERHAPS?

LET'S HAVE A LOOK AT SOME EARLY CALCULATORS TO HELP US DECIDE .....

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

Here's Blaise Pascal's calculating machine, from 1642.

When a right-hand wheel has advanced ten times, it advances its left-hand wheel once.

Our brains do this all the time when we have to "carry ten" in our sums. We call such things "thinking".

So is this machine thinking?

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

Here's another calculating machine, this time from the German philosopher-engineer Gottfried Leibniz in 1673. It's bigger and faster than Pascal's and driven by the handle front left. BUT IT'S STILL NOT THINKING!

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

By 1832, calculating machines were getting a lot bigger.

This one's by the British inventor Charles Babbage and was called a "difference engine".

But it's still not thinking!

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

Here's the punched card instruction system which the inventor Charles Babbage wanted to use to program his all-purpose computer. Even modern computers still follow sequential sets of instructions not unlike these.

SOME PSYCHOLOGY .....

SO HERE'S ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS EVER ASKED .....

IF YOU WERE LEONARDO DA VINCI, AND YOU PUT ENOUGH GEARS AND HYDRAULIC

PIPES INTO A MECHANICAL PERSON, COULD YOU MAKE IT THINK?

AND HOW WOULD YOU KNOW WHETHER IT WAS REALLY THINKING FOR ITSELF, AND

NOT JUST FOLLOWING SOME PRE-SET PROGRAM?

AFTER ALL, APPEARANCES CAN BE VERY DECEPTIVE .....

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

Which of these robots is the more intelligent, do you think?

(The answer's on the next slide.)

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

This is Johnny Five, from the 1986 movie "Short Circuit". He looks bright enough, but he was worked by remote control. Just a puppet!

This, on the other hand, is Kismet, from MIT. Kismet has a genuine electronic brain, and can mimic a number of human emotional expressions (especially those involving eyebrows)!

ONE POSSIBLE ANSWER WAS SUGGESTED IN 1950 BY A MATHEMATICIAN CALLED

ALAN MATHISON TURING

HERE ARE THE KEY POINTS OF THE TURING STORY .....

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

Alan Turing trained as a mathematician at Cambridge University, and wondered how powerful computers could get.

By 1938 he had decided that there was no problem under the sun which couldn't be solved by turning it into a series of simple instructions like Babbage had proposed a century before.

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

At the outbreak of the Second World War, because he knew so much about computing, Turing was recruited to the government's code-breaking installation at Bletchley Park.

This is his office 50 years later. It's part of the Bletchley Park Museum.

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

By 1943, British wartime scientists had invented the first programmable electronic computer to help them decode the enemy's military signals.

Much of the construction work was done by a team of telecommunications engineers led by Tommy Flowers (shown here in the 1990s).

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

This is a recent rebuild of the machine Flowers and his team succeeded in putting together.

It's name was Colossus.

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

After the war, Turing continued to advise on computer design and application, and in 1950 he suggested that computers would one day be as intelligent as humans. Conscious even. Not everybody agreed. They thought that the human mind was too complicated to be programmed.

So Turing suggested holding a conversation with a machine, and seeing if you could tell it was a machine by what it said and the way it said it.

This is still known as the "Turing Test".

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

Here's a conversation between a man and a machine. This one's easy to spot.

• What's your name?• John.• Nice to see you John. What do you want to talk about?• John.• Please don't repeat yourself, it confuses me.

On Line 4 the computer expected the man to reply "Me", and can't cope when the man simply repeated his own name.

SO THE TURING TEST IS A CONVERSATION BETWEEN A PERSON AND A YET-TO-BE-

DECIDED MACHINE-OR-PERSON.

AND IF YOU CAN'T TELL WHICH IS WHICH

THEN YOU LOSE!

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

This is the American philanthropist, Hugh Loebner.

Every year since 1990 he has sponsored the Loebner Prize competition for software writers eager to put their products to the Turing Test.

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

In fact there are two prizes on offer .....

THE GOLD PRIZE OF $100,000

ANNUAL BRONZE PRIZES OF $2000

The Bronze Prize for 2005 went to software called JABBERWACKY.

THE TURING TEST OFMACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS

Here's as good as it gets. Here's part of a conversation with the 2005 Loebner Bronze Prize winner, JABBERWACKY.

Hello, my name is Sam and I am the human.Hi Sam, tell me which is larger, a TV screen or Belgium.

Belgium is a little bit larger.Wljso lwjejdo wleje elwjeo wjeol, isn't it?Is that Polish?Who.

THE BIG QUESTION

WILL ROBOTS AND ANDROIDS EVER "THINK"

FOR THEMSELVES

NOBODY KNOWS FOR SURE

BUT BECOME A PSYCHOLOGIST AND BE ONE OF THE FIRST TO FIND OUT!!

THE END

(OR IS IT?)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

For leaflets on careers in psychology, to book your place on an Open Day, or just for general advice on the university experience as a whole, please contact .....

Mrs Helen Campling, Centre for Psychology, UWIC, Western Avenue, Cardiff, CF5 2YB

Tel: 02920 417210 E-mail: hcampling@uwic.ac.uk

Thank you for watching" The Turing Test of Machine Consciousness "

This has been an educational resource in UWIC's"Psychology as a Career"

Academic Video Series

© 2005, University of Wales Institute, Cardiff