Re: the Turing test

David D. (mars@bga.com)
Sun, 13 Oct 1996 00:15:17 -0700


Lyle Burkhead wrote:

> Some time ago, a group of cs students at Carnegie Mellon decided to
> run an experiment. They subscribed their AI program to the Extropian
> list under a made-up name. Their program participates in the various
> discussions on this list. It doesn't get any help from the students.
> The Extropians have accepted it as part of the group. No one notices
> anything different about it -- no one has seriously raised the question of whether it might not be what it purports to be, i.e. just another
human.
> In other words, this program has passed the Turing test, so far.
>
> Lyle

You're kidding! <eyes glaze over in delight> This has got to be the most
fascinating thing I've yet to read on this list. Does the AI still post?
Or is this some sort of Evil Extropian prank?

Evil Extropians is my current thought experiment. What if a group of
ne'er do wells broke off from the extropians and set their minds to world
domination? Better yet, to galactic domination. How would they use the
info gleaned from this list?

David D.