Huma Shah

• PhD Cybernetics
• Professor (Assistant) at Coventry University

Trust is an expected certainty in order to transact confidently. However, how accurate is our decision-making in human-machine interaction? In this chapter we present evidence from experimental conditions in which human interrogators used their judgement of what constitutes a satisfactory response trusting a hidden interlocutor was human when it wa...

Background Management of citizen science engagement during a force majeure needs very careful consideration in order not to lose precious time. This paper serves as a guide for pro-action in the event of another virus-enforced stay-at-home, movement-control order and presents necessary changes undertaken by an international collaboration during a o...

Guidelines with recommendations for the EU to improve monitoring and compliance of the general data protection regulation (GDPR) in websites and apps. Includes suggestion to review the 'legitimate interest' loophole extracting personal data without full transparency and informed consent.

Inclusive citizen science, an emerging field, has seen extensive research. Prior studies primarily concentrated on creating theoretical models and practical strategies for diversifying citizen science (CS) projects. These studies relied on ethical frameworks or post-project empirical observations. Few examined active participants’ socio-demographic...

EU Horizon2020 funded CSI-COP citizen science project investigating GDPR compliance in websites and apps.

P a g e | 1 This first policy brief in CSI-COP, an Horizon2020 SwafS-15 2018-19 'Exploring and supporting citizen science' funded project, presented the pre-citizen science engagement stage in the project. This second policy brief makes two recommendations arising from the evidence in the engagement of citizen scientists in collaboration with the p...

This is the second and final societal impact report arising from activities in the CSI-COP project. It follows the first societal impact report which presented the initial impact of the project, affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, on CSI-COP project partners. Since then, we have seen societal impact spread to the citizen scientists who joined as web...

Why AI does not include gender in its agenda? The role of gender in AI, both as part of the community of agents creating such technologies, as well as part of the contents processed by such technologies is, by far, conflictive. Women have been, again, obliterated by this fundamental revolution of our century. Highly innovative and the first step in...

This chapter posits that gender, while being messy and non-binary, is a salient consideration in the development of virtual and embodied robots to avoid replicating stereotypical representations of men and women's roles and occupations in our future artificial work colleagues, and companions. Some questions are posed for robot developers with early...

This is the first policy brief in the EU Horizon2020 funded CSI-COP project with recommendations to the EU.

This document provides the framework for the optimum method of applying ECSA’s (European Citizen Science Association) ten principles of citizen science engagement for quality assurance in ethical and inclusive citizen science engagement in the CSI-COP project for the purposes of investigating the extent of online tracking. Following a dynamic recru...

Public report for EU Horizon2020 CSI-COP project. Grant agreement ID: 873169

Invited web-talk to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), Cardiff introduces the EU Horizon2020 funded research and innovation project ‘Citizen scientists investigating cookies and apps GDPR compliance’ (CSI-COP). The project leverages citizen science methodology to recruit widely from the general public. Citizen scientists will be informally ed...

This report is a deliverable on the EU Horizon2020 research and innovation project, CSI-COP. It details the literature review conducted to find the best practices in citizen science engagement.

Talk accessible from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM9La4df3k0 Nascent AI technologies have exposed some bias issues stemming from possible limited range in data sets used to train algorithms and teach machines. The news conveys the results of inadequately trained algorithms, for example: “Black man is stunned after passport photo chec...

Trust is an expected certainty in order to transact confidently. However, how accurate is our decision-making in human-machine interaction? In this chapter, the present evidence from experimental conditions in which human interrogators used their judgement of what constitutes a satisfactory response trusting a hidden interlocutor was human when it...

In this paper, we look at the possibility of a machine having a sense of humour. In particular, we focus on actual machine utterances in Turing test discourses. In doing so, we do not consider the Turing test in depth and what this might mean for humanity, rather we merely look at cases in conversations when the output from a machine can be conside...

Invited talk to the general public

Chapter in book available in English and Spanish about: "The Next Step: Exponential Life presents a necessarily partial and schematic view of the potential of what are known as “exponential technologies,” considering their economic, social, environmental, ethical, and even ontological implications. This book’s fundamental idea is that humanity is...

Presentation at the Conversational Interaction Conference, San Jose CA, 30-31 January 2017: http://www.conversationalinteraction.com/speakers Presents machine performance in providing satisfactory and sustained answers to any questions.

Coventry University, Faculty of Engineering, Environment and Computing Research Seminar Series

Based on Shah’s PhD ‘Deception-detection and Machine Intelligence in Practical Turing tests’ and follow up experiments, the book introduces and explores Turing's Imitation Game (Turing Test,) which gave rise to the science of artificial intelligence. Involving an interrogator conversing with hidden identities, one human and one machine, the test st...

Accepted for presentation in Ethical and Legal Aspect of Social Robots Workshop, Barcelona, November 2016. https://legalaspectsofsocialrobots.wordpress.com/ Part of New Friends 2016 conference: http://www.newfriends2016.org/ Short Abstract: The idea for utilising intelligent agents in education is not new (Johnson, Rickel & Lester, 2000). Even usi...

This year’s World Economic Forum showed how significant Artificial Intelligence (AI) is to the success of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.: http://trustindigitallife.eema.org/programme

In this paper we look at the phenomenon that is the Turing test. We consider how Turing originally introduced his imitation game and discuss what this means in a practical scenario. Due to its popular appeal we also look into different representations of the test as indicated by numerous reviewers. The main emphasis here, however, is to consider wh...

When judging the capabilities of technology, different humans can have very different perspectives and come to quite diverse conclusions over the same data set. In this paper we consider the capabilities of humans when it comes to judging conversational abilities, as to whether they are conversing with a human or a machine. In particular the issue...

Should intelligent agents and robots possess gender? If so, which gender and why? The authors explore one root of the gender-in-AI question from Turing’s introductory male-female imitation game, which matured to his famous Turing test examining machine thinking and measuring its intelligence against humans. What we find is gender is not clear cut a...

Without knowledge of other features, can the sex of a person be determined through text-based communication alone? In the first Turing test experiment enclosing 24 human-duo set-ups embedded among machine-human pairs the interrogators erred 50% of the time in assigning the correct sex to a hidden interlocutor identified as human. In this paper we p...

In this paper, we look at a specific issue with practical Turing tests, namely the right of the machine to remain silent during interrogation. In particular, we consider the possibility of a machine passing the Turing test simply by not saying anything. We include a number of transcripts from practical Turing tests in which silence has actually occ...

In this article we consider transcripts that originated from a practical series of Turing's Imitation Game that was held on 6 and 7 June 2014 at the Royal Society London. In all cases the tests involved a three-participant simultaneous comparison by an interrogator of two hidden entities, one being a human and the other a machine. Each of the trans...

What do humans say/ask beyond initial greetings? Are humans always the best at conversation? How easy is it to distinguish an intelligent human from an ‘intelligent agent’ just from their responses to unrestricted questions during a conversation? This paper presents an insight into the nature of human communications, including behaviours and intera...

Manuscript ID: TETA-2012-0146.R2 This paper presents some important issues on misidentification of human interlocutors in text-based communication during practical Turing Tests. The study here presents transcripts in which human judges succumbed to the confederate effect, misidentifying hidden human foils for machines. An attempt is made to assess...

In this paper we consider transcripts which originated from a practical series of Turing’s Imitation Game which was held on 23rd June 2012 at Bletchley Park, England. In some cases the tests involved a 3-participant simultaneous comparison of two hidden entities whereas others were the result of a direct 2-participant interaction. Each of the trans...

Special Turing2014 issue - 60 years anniversary of his death: This paper makes no apology for its reading like a collection of book reports. It draws mainly on the reminiscences of Sara and John Turing, Alan Turing’s mother and elder brother respectively, as well as from Andrew Hodges’ extensive research on the man, his work and his impact gathere...

This paper appraises some of the prevailing ideas surrounding one of Turing’s brilliant ideas, his imitation game experiment, and considers judge performance in assessing machine thinking in the light of practical Turing tests. The emphasis is not on philosophical aspects as to whether machines can think or not but rather on the nature of the disco...

In this paper we consider natural, feigned or absence of emotions in text-based dialogues. The dialogues occurred during interactions between human Judges/Interrogators and hidden entities in practical Turing tests implemented at Bletchley Park in June 2012. We focus on the interactions that left the Interrogator unable to say whether they were tal...

Whilst common sense knowledge has been well researched in terms of intelligence and (in particular) artificial intelligence, specific, factual knowledge also plays a critical part in practice. When it comes to testing for intelligence, testing for factual knowledge is, in every-day life, frequently used as a front line tool. This paper presents new...

This paper posits fundamental artificial intelligence is founded on Turing’s two implementations for his imitation game: a simultaneous comparison 3-participant test, and a 2-participant viva voce test. In the former, the human interrogator questions two hidden interlocutors in parallel deciding which is the human and which is the machine. In the l...

See: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-013-0534-3 Interpretation of utterances affects an interrogator’s determination of human from machine during live Turing tests. Here we consider transcripts realised as a result of a series of practical Turing tests which were held on 23rd June 2012 at Bletchley Park, England. The focus in this...

This chapter is wide ranging with each author’s section a standalone point considering robots in science fi ction, including in the groundbreaking cinematic Metropolis ; the notion of good robots; the need for good designers to create good robots; the technology inside good robots; and morality in biological robots. Robots and robotic technologies...

Here we consider the issue of human enhancement in terms of a practical case study, essentially taking an engineering perspective. In this way it is hoped that some of the more philosophical considerations can be grounded and given a fundamental form from which they can be discussed. The basis of understanding for this is that the first named autho...

Robots are slowly, but certainly, entering people’s professional and private lives. They require the attention of regulators due to the challenges they present to existing legal frameworks and the new legal and ethical questions they raise. This paper discusses four major regulatory dilemmas in the field of robotics: how to keep up with technologic...

Describing two ways to practicalise his question-answer game to examine machine thinking in 1950, Turing believed one day a machine would succeed in providing satisfactory and sustained answers to any questions. In 2011 IBM Watson achieved success competing against two human champions in a televised general knowledge quiz show. Though he regarded t...

Do modern dialogue agents implement the same old strategy of Joseph Weizenbaum's 'talking' system Eliza, now approaching a mature half-a-century? To test this claim a unique experiment was conducted staging Alan Turing's one-to-one viva voce test to compare an online version of Eliza with five of the current best, award-winning text-based artificia...

A series of imitation games involving 3-participant (simultaneous comparison of two hidden entities) and 2-participant (direct interrogation of a hidden entity) were conducted at Bletchley Park on the 100th anniversary of Alan Turing’s birth: 23 June 2012. From the ongoing analysis of over 150 games involving (expert and non-expert, males and femal...

Deception-detection project Since January 2012 over a hundred human participants (75% male; 25% female; age range 13-65), involved as Turing test judges in Reading University's Alan Turing centenary project. The aim of the judges: detect deception via text-based conversation and distinguish the machines (hidden from hearing and view) imitating huma...

One feature of 'humanness' that Turing did not factor into his imitation game for machine thinking and intelligence is that mistakes will be made by some of the human interrogators, and others are easily fooled. Those that err and those susceptible to deception include 'experts' who cannot be described as unintelligent as a result of their judgemen...

Executive Summary Malware comes in different forms. A novel way cybercrime is being perpetrated on individuals is through the use of artificial dialogue systems that are flirting chatbots, such as C Cy yb be er rL Lo ov ve er r. This kind of malware penetrates instant messaging platforms (e.g. MSN Messenger) and Internet chatrooms. The unaware indi...

Chatterbox Challenge is an annual web-based contest for artificial conversational systems, ACE. The 2010 instantiation was the tenth consecutive contest held between March and June in the 60th year following the publication of Alan Turing’s influential disquisition ‘computing machinery and intelligence’. Loosely based on Turing’s viva voca interrog...

http://www.rusi.org/events/past/ref:E4DA84E33C57FB/ The UK National Security Strategy in 2010 described cyber attack as one of the four highest priority risks facing the UK over the next five years [1]. In February 2011 William Hague, UK First Secretary of State described cybercrime as a “huge issue running out of control” [2]. Get Safe Online repo...

At the heart of Turing"s 1950 imitation game is the question-answer test to assess whether a machine can respond with satisfactory and sustained answers to unrestricted questions. In 1966, Weizenbaum"s Eliza system made it possible for a human and a machine to communicate via text in question and answer sessions. Forty five year later in 2011, IBM...

Deception-detection is the crux of Turing’s experiment to examine machine thinking conveyed through a capacity to respond with sustained and satisfactory answers to unrestricted questions put by a human interrogator. However, in 60 years to the month since the publication of Computing Machinery and Intelligence little agreement exists for a canon...

Based on insufficient evidence, and inadequate research, Floridi and his students report inaccuracies and draw false conclusions in their Minds and Machines evaluation, which this paper aims to clarify. Acting as invited judges, Floridi et al. participated in nine, of the ninety-six, Turing tests staged in the finals of the 18th Loebner Prize for A...

Chatterbox Challenge is an annual web-based contest for artificial conversational systems, ACE. The 2010 instantiation was the tenth consecutive contest held between March and June in the 60th year following the publication of Alan Turing's influential disquisition 'computing machinery and intelligence'. Loosely based on Turing's viva voca interrog...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider Turing's two tests for machine intelligence: the parallel‐paired, three‐participants game presented in his 1950 paper, and the “jury‐service” one‐to‐one measure described two years later in a radio broadcast. Both versions were instantiated in practical Turing tests during the 18th Loebner Prize fo...

This paper presents an analysis of three major contests for machine intelligence. We conclude that a new era for Turing's test requires a fillip in the guise of a committed sponsor, not unlike DARPA, funders of the successful 2007 Urban Challenge. 12

SHORT ABSTRACT Like politicians, for example Sarah Palin the Governor of Alaska, the best current artificial conversational entities – ACE, are effective at evasion and topic-shifting. Elbot and Eugene ACE without understanding in the 'human sense' deceived human judges 20% of the time during the finals of the18 th Loebner Prize for Artificial Inte...

The Turing Test, originally configured as a game for a human to distinguish between an unseen and unheard man and woman, through a text-based conversational measure of gender, is the ultimate test for deception and hence, thinking. So conceived Alan Turing when he introduced a machine into the game. His idea, that once a machine deceives a human ju...

Peter Rickman, in his 1999 paper “The Philosopher as Joker” contends that computers cannot make good jokes, asserting that “the capacity at the basis of jokes is a unique characteristic of our minds and lies at the heart of originality and creativity”. Jabberwacky, an artificial conversational entity - ACE, twice winner of Loebner’s Prize for Arti...

The Turing Test, originally configured for a human to distinguish between an unseen man and unseen woman through a text-based conversational measure of gender, is the ultimate test for thinking. So conceived Alan Turing when he replaced the woman with a machine. His assertion, that once a machine deceived a human judge into believing that they were...

One of the differences between natural conversational entities – NCE (humans) and artificial conversational entities – ACE (such as Carpenter’s Jabberwacky), is the ability the former have to constrain random output during dialogue. When humans want to participate in, and pursue conversation with each other they maintain coherent dialogue through c...

The geography of a modern Eliza provides an illusion of natural language understanding, through sophisticated techniques capturing context and interaction-based learning. This can be seen in the best of the hundred-plus programmes entered into Chatterbox Challenge 2005 (CBC 2005), an alternative to Loebner’s Contest for artificial intelligence, Tur...

This paper presents preliminary evaluation of a text-based dialogical e-query system from the house of Kiwilogic used successfully in e-commerce. The authors argue that without natural language understanding the systems provide convenient communication between human and computer presenting appropriate responses to questions in specialised dialogue...

Artificial linguistic Internet computer entity, A.L.I.C.E. is considered head and shoulders above other artificial conversational entities, an ACE in digitaland. Three times winner of Loebner's annual instantiation of Turing's Test for machine intelligence in 2000, 2001 and 2004 judged most human-like machine, A.L.I.C.E. was additionally gold medal...

This paper presents a pilot study involving 99 participants analysing conversations between Judges 2, 4 and 7, hidden humans (Confederates), and Jabberwock, bronze prize winner for most human-like machine from Loebner's 2003 Contest, instantiation of Turing's Test for machine intelligence. The transcripts from these conversations were given to chil...