Up@dawn 2.0

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Alan Turing and the Turing Test – 1st Installment #10

            Not long ago, we talked about Alan Turing in class.  Turing had huge influences on computer science and artificial intelligence (A.I.) that we can still recognize to this day.  He also helped crack coded messages from the Nazis during World War II, effectively ending the war much sooner.  Turing later designed the first stored program computer, which wouldn’t be built until years later.  However, he was probably most well-known for his definition of “intelligence” in machines, or the Turing test. The Turing test is one of the most frequently cited papers in modern philosophy.
            Alan Turing was born on June 23, 1912 in London.  Even when he was young, Turing showed signs of high intelligence.  In his early teens, he became very interested in math and science.  He studied at the University of Cambridge from 1931 to 1934.  In 1936, he presented a paper that created the notion of a universal machine, capable of computing anything.  This was later called the “Turing machine”, and modern computers are based on this.  Turing received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1938.  Afterwards, he moved to Cambridge and took a part-time job with a British code-breaking organization, the Government Code and Cypher School.
            During his time at the GCCS, Turing was an important participant in code-breaking, specifically during World War II.  He made several major advances in cryptanalysis (code-breaking), including the bombe, a device used to decrypt messages (over time) that were intercepted from the Nazis.  Though the bombe didn’t outright decrypt messages, it was a huge advancement towards cracking the code for the Enigma machine, the Nazi’s coded messaging system.  It used trial and error to determine possible settings that would improve the chances over time.  Many people claim this to be his greatest contribution, as it potentially ended the war years earlier and saved millions of lives globally.
            After the war, Turing moved to London.  He began working for the National Physical Laboratory, where he designed the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE).  The ACE was essentially a blueprint for stored-program computers, which has conceptually been used as a model by many technology corporations.  This led Turing to hold high-ranking positions in the mathematics department (and later computing laboratory) at the University of Manchester in the late 1940’s.
            In 1950, Turing addressed the issue of artificial intelligence.  In his paper, he proposed an experiment called the “Turing Test”, in which he proposed a test that would define “intelligence” in machines.  The test is simple: imagine yourself having a conversation with someone through text messages, and everything seems normal.  However, the person you’re talking to isn’t a person at all, but a computer.  It can understand what you’re saying, and send responses back to you that seem completely normal.  Now imagine you show the conversation to someone else; if he/she cannot tell who’s the human (or if they think that the computer is the human), then the computer passes the Turing test, and is said to be “intelligent”.
            Turing had many unorthodox ideas and presented many new concepts in his paper, but was never able to see them through.  He was prosecuted in 1952 for homosexual acts (which was illegal in the U.K. at the time).  In 1954, he passed away from cyanide poisoning ruled as suicide, but is unknown if it was intentional.  Though Turing did not intend for the paper to be as philosophical as it is seen today, the Turing test has been a subject of debate for decades now.  Alan Turing never thought of himself as a philosopher, but his paradox of machine intelligence has propelled his legacy into modern philosophy.


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2 comments:

  1. So sadly ironic, the way this brilliant genius was hounded to death when he should have been celebrated. Has anyone developed a Turing-style test for humanity and decency or emotional intelligence? His persecutors would not pass. He's finally beginning to get his due. But... isn't there more to intelligence than the ability to confuse or puzzle a human?

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  2. The Turing Test is really interesting; the video really helps explain it.

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