LONDON, June 09: A Russian supercomputer posing as a 13-year-old boy has convinced judges that it is human, becoming the first to pass the “Turing Test” in a historic moment in artificial intelligence, British scientists said.
The computer became the first in the world to be mistaken for a real person more than 30 percent of the time, during a series of five-minute keyboard conversations with humans conducted at the Royal Society in London.
The test was established in 1950 by Alan Turing, a World War II British codebreaker and pioneer of computer science, in a journal article about whether computers “think.”
At the competition on Saturday, five supercomputers — machines that run massive numbers of processors to make high-speed calculations — were presented with a series of unrestricted questions.
Real people also answered the questions, and the judges had to decide who was human and who was not.
The Russian computer program, which simulated a 13-year-old boy named Eugene Goostman, persuaded the judges 33 percent of the time that it was a human.
“In the field of artificial intelligence there is no more iconic and controversial milestone than the Turing Test, when a computer convinces a sufficient number of interrogators into believing that it is not a machine but rather is a human,” said Professor Kevin Warwick of the University of Reading, west of London, who organized the competition.
He said that while some experts claim that the Turing Test had already been passed, the Royal Society experiment went further than others — including in the random nature of the questions — and was independently verified.
“We are therefore proud to declare that Alan Turing’s Test was passed for the first time on Saturday,” Warwick said.
The Russian creator of “Eugene,” US-based scientist Vladimir Veselov, said the result was a “remarkable achievement.”
“We spent a lot of time developing a character with a believable personality,” he said.
“This year we improved the ‘dialog controller’ which makes the conversation far more human-like when compared to programs that just answer questions.
“Going forward we plan to make Eugene smarter and continue working on improving what we refer to as ‘conversation logic’.”
Turing, who played a major role in breaking the “Enigma” code used by Nazi Germany, is often hailed as a genius who laid the groundwork for modern computing.
But he ended his life in sadness, committing suicide in 1954 at the age of 41, two years after being convicted of the then crime of homosexuality.
He was awarded a posthumous pardon by Queen Elizabeth II in December 2013 following a long campaign by supporters.
Supercomputer emulates teenager to pass ‘Turing Test’
Supercomputer emulates teenager to pass ‘Turing Test’
Apple to update EU browser options, make more apps deletable
- iPhone maker came under pressure from regulators to make changes after the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act took effect on March 7
- Apple users will be able to select a default browser directly from the choice screen after going through a mandatory list of options
STOCKHOLM: Apple will change how users choose browser options in the European Union, add a dedicated section for changing default apps, and make more apps deletable, the company said on Thursday.
The iPhone maker came under pressure from regulators to make changes after the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act took effect on March 7, forcing big tech companies to offer mobile users the ability to select from a list of available web browsers on a “choice screen.”
The new rules require mobile software makers to show the choice screen where users can select a browser, search engine and virtual assistant as they set up their phones, which earlier came with preferred options from Apple and Google.
In an update later this year, Apple users will be able to select a default browser directly from the choice screen after going through a mandatory list of options.
A randomly ordered list of 12 browsers per EU country will be shown to the user with short descriptions, and the chosen one will be automatically downloaded, Apple said. The choice screen will also be available on iPads through an update later this year.
Apple released a previous update in response to the new rules in March, but browser companies criticized the design of its choice screen, and the Commission opened an investigation on March 25 saying it suspected that the measures fell short of effective compliance.
The company said it has been in dialogue with the European Commission and believes the new changes will address regulators’ concerns.
It also plans to introduce a dedicated area for default apps where a user will be able to set defaults for messaging, phone calls, spam filters, password managers and keyboards.
Users will also be able to delete certain Apple-made apps such as App Store, Messages, Camera, Photos and Safari. Only Settings and Phone apps would not be deletable.
