It’s Time To Dump the Turing Test for AI

To say that AI is the new ‘hot thing’ would be putting it lightly. Since the groundbreaking release of ChatGPT in 2022, a slew of major tech companies have joined the AI market, racing to develop the most sophisticated technology. This trend invites us to examine the ‘Turing Test,’ a test that assesses how much a machine can think like a human being.

Some AI attempts at human imitation have been successful. Others have led to eerie results in the Uncanny Valley. As the market pushes tech stocks ever higher, rewarding their pursuit of more advanced AI models, one has to ask: what consequences do we face when AI succeeds in mimicking human intelligence? Is the Turing Test sufficient in determining whether a machine truly possesses real intelligence?

The Turing Test Explained

In 1950, mathematician Alan Turing – often referenced as the father of modern computer science – published a paper that changed the game. He proposed a test for determining whether a machine could display intelligence indistinguishable from that of a human.

Turing’s test, originally called the ‘imitation game,’ was based on natural language conversations between a human and a machine using text only. The test did not require the answers submitted to questions made by either party in the conversation to be correct. It simply asked if the answers given could be used to determine whether the participant giving that answer was a human or a machine.

If a third-party human evaluator was unable to reliably distinguish which participant was the machine and which was the human, then the machine could be said to have passed the test.

How Close Are We To Passing the Turing Test?

By the standard of Turing’s test, recent AI-based models must be accepted as ‘intelligent,’ at least to some extent. Indeed, Stanford researchers are already claiming that ChatGPT version 4 “passes a rigorous Turing test.”

Yet, for all the convincingly human-like responses these models give to questions and commands, I do not regard them as ‘intelligent.’

The problem lies not in the capabilities of the models, but rather in the fact that we humans are too easily fooled.

The Turing Test Was Always Fundamentally Flawed

Turing’s test is akin to arguing that if a stage conjuror is capable of fooling the audience with their illusions, then they may be said to have performed ‘magic.’ In their heyday, many great magicians claimed to possess supernatural or spiritual powers as part of their amazing acts.

The infamous Harry Houdini made a practice out of debunking these claims. He specialized in showing that magical effects were the result of clever trickery and modern technologies that were poorly-understood at the time, such as electricity.

Indeed, in more recent times, the science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke argued that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

The illusionists of the past fooled many people. This includes famous men such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, who was willing to believe in the existence of fairies.

AI Blindsides the Turing Test

When we watch a magic show in Las Vegas today, presented by the likes of David Copperfield or Penn and Teller, we know that it is all an illusion. We pretend it’s magic temporarily, simply because we want to be entertained.

Likewise, when confronted by the likes of ChatGPT, we may feel amazed. Look at how human-like its output feels! Consider how we may best be able to leverage the new technology in our work! Large language models have certainly proven to have great commercial applications. Just ask the many companies that have integrated generative AI to improve their efficiencies and enhance their customer offerings.

Like all technology, AI has been used for purposes both good and ill. Sometimes, what starts out as good intentions turns into something problematic for organizations and downright dangerous to end users.

In 2023, the National Eating Disorder Association had to take its therapeutic AI chatbot ‘Tessa’ down after users reported unrelated and blatantly harmful ‘advice’ from the tech. The organization had fired its very human staff and volunteers in favor of the chatbot. Perhaps that proves the point — that beyond the Turing Test, there is a greater question we need to ask around the dangers of how we use AI.

How To Parse the AI Goldrush

We must not allow ourselves to be tricked into thinking that these AI models display real intelligence. They represent extremely sophisticated statistical metrics that excel at predicting the most likely word to appear next in a sentence. However, they do so without any understanding whatsoever of what the word, let alone the sentence, paragraph, or article of which it forms a part, actually means.

For all of Alan Turing’s brilliance and far-sightedness, his test to determine whether or not a machine may be said to possess intelligence is no longer fit for purpose.

It’s time to dump it and replace it with something better. Experts have rung the alarm about the dangers of AI. Let’s not prove them right.

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This article was originally published on June 2, 2023.]

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