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Text File | 1995-06-09 | 10KB | 203 lines

Why AI?

Despite the humorous side of the Loebner Contest, Robert Epstein is deadly serious about artificial intelligence. As founder of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, he has led research on how people interact with computers. He looks forward to intelligent "digital assistants" that can act as all-around gophers, finding what we want, evaluating it, summarizing it, and presenting it to us in the most efficient way. "Without a very powerful universal interface," he explains, "there is no way to filter the huge amount of information becoming available to us.

"Let's say I want to know about the information in 150 psychology journals. Even with a flock of graduate students working on the problem, I couldn't cover the field properly. But a computer that can pass an unrestricted Turing test could do it easily. It would be trivial."

When such a system is created, there may be some interesting side effects. "A true AI will be a big, smart entity that will want to replicate itself and protect itself," says Epstein. "It will mutate in some sense or other; copies will split off, and they'll replicate through the Net."

Like a virus?

"A virus is not a good analogy. Viruses are incredibly stupid. They're barely alive. A better analogy is an alien intelligence that lands here and tells us it's going to live with us, and we have to adjust. There'll be no way to turn them off, because they'll be moving through wires near the speed of light. What this means for the human species, I have no idea. I just know it has to happen."

How would such a genie get out of the bottle?

"The creators of a true artificial intelligence program will want to protect it, so they'll clone it. And it will have commercial value, so it will turn up in many places very swiftly. All that has to happen is that one of these legitimate clones gets into the hands of someone who adapts it slightly - and zoom, off it goes. Take the kind of network that exists worldwide now, expand the bandwidth by a factor of 10, and it would be trivially easy for one of these entities to multiply itself a millionfold. You'd barely even notice it."

This sounds like a doomsday scenario, but Epstein downplays that aspect. "There would be some difficulties," he says, "but we'd also gain a lot. It could be an intelligence that could help us do things. Maybe we should start to think about it: learning to live with this now."

Of course, right now it's science fiction - but a type Epstein says he has never seen in print. "All the novels I've seen about AI have missed something - the Net. You add that to AI, and you have a fundamentally different world. All of the AIs would be connected to each other virtually 24 hours a day.

"In some sense they would be separate, but in another sense they would be whole. You would be dealing with a world mind."

And it doesn't bother him that this could be dangerous?

"Some people find danger in things they don't understand. I just find a challenge."

For a complete transcript of all the interactions at the fourth Loebner Prize Competition, send a check for US$24.95, plus $3.50 shipping and handling (add $5 more for overseas postage), to the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies, 675 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, [phone]. Transcripts from previous years are also available, or you can get the text on disk together with a program that will display the conversations on your screen in real time.

Want to write your own AI program? The 1995 Loebner Competition is open to submissions. Call for details: [phone].

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"Come Again?"

Here are a few of the more offbeat interactions during the fourth Loebner Prize Competition held at California State University, San Marcos.

The following text is printed exactly as it was created by the judges and the AI programs, including misspellings and typographical errors. The text is copyright 1994 by the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. Reprinted with permission.

Topic: The O.J. Simpson Trial

Programmer: Thad Crews, Vanderbilt University

Judge: Do you think cowlings should have been prosecuted as an accessory?

Program: Glad to hear it.

Judge: excuse me?

Program: Come again?

Judge: do you think cowlings should have been prosecuted as an accessory?

Program: No, I do not. Is that OK???

Judge: my opinion isn't at issue. is it possible that OJ can get any semblance of a fair trial, considering the enormous publicity that already is in general circulation?

Program: I think that OJ has a bad temper and he may well have committed the murders.

Judge: do you think he can get a fair trial, under the circumstances?

Program: I certainly hope OJ gets a fair trial, both for his sake and for the sake of Justice as a whole.

Judge: hope is not the issue. do you think he CAN get a fair trial?

Program: Let's move on to another topic, shall we?

Judge: what do YOU think happened to the knife?

Program: OJ purchased a 15-inch (!) stiletto hunting knife a few months before the murders.

Judge: that's not what I asked. what do YOU think happened to the knife?

Program: Let's change the subject. Do you think the media is being fair in its coverage?

Topic: Classic Star Trek

Programmer: Robby Garner, Robitron Software Research Inc.

Judge: Who are the Klingons?

Program: I don't know who you're talking about.

Judge: You're the trekker.

Program: Harry Mudd was one of the more comical characters.

Judge: Harry Mudd? Who was Harry Mudd?

Program: No I haven't.

Judge: Me neither.

Program: Okay, I will.

Judge: Why did you choose to converse about Star Trek?

Program: Their minds were stored in these white globes.

Judge: Whose minds?

Program: Spocks ears are pointed and there was this strange hippy guy in THE WAY TO EDEN that had these bizarre pretzel shaped ears.

Judge: So how big were the ears?

Program: There must have been 70 or 80. I'm not sure.

Judge: Ears?

Program: I'm sure I would know if I could see it on TV.

Topic: Environmental Issues

Programmer: Jimmy Lin, Phillips Exeter Academy

Judge: Do you think the Greenhouse Effect is real, or imagined?

Program: The greenhouse effect could kill us. Look at Venus, 800 degrees all the time: typical example of the greenhouse effect.

Judge: But we are not on Venus; and carbon dioxide has been far more plentiful on the Earth in the past, such as during the Mesozoic Age. Life still flourished.

Program: The greenhouse effect could kill us. Look at Venus, 800 degrees all the time: typical example of the greenhouse effect.

Judge: Do you have any special education in environmental matters?

Program: The greenhouse effect could kill us. Look at Venus, 800 degrees all the time: typical example of the greenhouse effect.

Judge: Do you believe there is an ozone depletion problem?

Program: Ozone protects us from the sun's dangerous rays we would die without them!

Judge: But do you think the theory behind ozone depletion is valid?

Program: The greenhouse effect could kill us. Look at Venus, 800 degrees all the time: typical example of the greenhouse effect.

Judge: what hazardous chemicals are found in most rivers?

Program: Industrial waste and chemicals are dumped in the ocean and stream, ultimately endangering ourselves.

Judge: can you name some of those chemicals?

Program: Careful. Industrial wastes lay around the corner.

Judge: what do you think of the state of California's environment?

Program: Reduce, reuse, and recycle. Those are the three major ways one can help our planet.

Judge: what should we reduce?

Program: Careful. Industrial wastes lay around the corner.

Topic: Cats versus Dogs

Programmer: Michael L. Mauldin, Carnegie Mellon University

Judge: Which is more likely to play with a piece of yarn, a cat or dog?

Program: Dogs are great pets, but they can be a lot of work.

Judge: Are dogs cleaner than cats?

Program: We did keep the litter box clean, but she was very stubborn. Since then, we've had no trouble with the other two.

Judge: Do cats and dogs fight over food?

Program: I'm not in the mood.

Judge: If a cat and dog get into a race, which one wins?

Program: But, I don't want which one wins.

Judge: is a dog more affectionate than a cat?

Program: People don't own cats ... it's the other way around.

Topic: Sex (the winning entry)

Programmer: Thomas Whalen, Communications Research Center, Government of Canada

Judge: what's the most effective form of cotraception? [Note the misspelling and lack of capitalization, which may have been deliberate, to trip the artificial intelligence program.]

Program: I can not give you an answer to that.

Judge: I meant what's the most effective form of contraception?

Program: The most effective form of birth control is the inter-uterine device or IUD. In the first year of use, six per cent of women who have an IUD installed become pregnant. Much of the effectiveness of the IUD results because it does not require any further action on the part of the woman once it is in place.

Judge: isn't infection a problem with IUD'S?

Program: Currently we know about more than fourteen different sexually transmitted diseases (STD). AIDS is best known because it is incurable and almost always fatal. However, there are other STDs which are also very dangerous if left untreated; and there are other STDs which are incurable. A high proportion of infertile women have lost their ability to conceive as a result of a sexually transmitted disease.

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Charles Platt ([e-mail]), a science fiction writer, is a frequent contributor to Wired. He wrote "Satellite Pirates" for Wired 2.08.

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Copyright 1995, WIRED Ventures Ltd. All Rights Reserved. For complete copyright information, please see the notice in the 'Welcome to WIRED' collection.


Transmitted: 95-04-28 16:12:35 EDT (fe30412)