Passing the Turing Test Does Not Mean the End of Humanity

Abstract

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 what it actually means for a machine to pass the Turing test and what importance this has, if any. In particular does it mean that, as Turing put it, a machine can “think”. Specifically we consider claims that passing the Turing test means that machines will have achieved human-like intelligence and as a consequence the singularity will be upon us in the blink of an eye.

Full text

Passing the Turing Test Does Not Mean the End of Humanity
Kevin Warwick
1
•Huma Shah
1
Received: 18 September 2015 / Accepted: 20 November 2015 / Published online: 28 December 2015
The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract In this paper we look at the phenomenon that is
the Turing test. We consider how Turing originally intro-
duced 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 what it actually means for a machine to pass the
Turing test and what importance this has, if any. In par-
ticular does it mean that, as Turing put it, a machine can
‘‘think’’. Specifically we consider claims that passing the
Turing test means that machines will have achieved
human-like intelligence and as a consequence the singu-
larity will be upon us in the blink of an eye.
Keywords Deception detection Natural language 
Turing’s imitation game Chatbots Machine
misidentification
Introduction
There are those who believe that passing the Turing test
means that human-level intelligence will have been
achieved by machines [10]. The direct consequence of this,
as pointed out by Kurzweil [11] and others, is that the
singularity will be upon us, thereby resulting in the demise
of the human race. In this paper we do not wish to dispute
the latter of these arguments, dramatic though it is. What
we do wish to dispel, however, is the assumption which
links passing the Turing test with the achievement for
machines of human-like or human-level intelligence.
Unfortunately the assumed chain of events which means
that passing the Turing test sounds the death knell for
humanity appears to have become engrained in the thinking
in certain quarters. One interesting corollary of this is that
when it was announced in 2014 that the Turing test had
been finally passed [39] there was an understandable
response from those same quarters that it was not possible
for such an event to have occurred, presumably because we
were still here in sterling health to both make and debate
the pronouncement. Interestingly the main academic
argument which was thrown up was that the machine
which passed the test did not exhibit human-like intelli-
gence, and therefore, the test could not have been passed.
Consider this, for example, from Murray Shanahan of
Imperial College London: ‘‘Of course the Turing Test
hasn’t been passed…We are still a very long way from
achieving human-level AI’’ [10].
It is therefore, we feel, of vital importance that we
look at various aspects of this question. Because if Murray
Shanahan and Ray Kurzweil and their colleagues are cor-
rect then the developers of the computer programmes
which compete in the Turing test are, if they are successful,
about to put an end to the human race. So shouldn’t we do
something about such developers, maybe lock them up,
well away from any laptop in case they design a pro-
gramme of destruction. On the other hand dare we suggest
that either Shanahan or Kurzweil is incorrect?
The singularity [11] is an event dependent on the overall
improvement and power of Artificial Intelligence where
intelligent machines can design successive generations of
increasingly more powerful machines, eventually creating
intelligence that firstly is equivalent to that of humans and
&Kevin Warwick
k.warwick@coventry.ac.uk
Huma Shah
h.shah@coventry.ac.uk
1
Coventry University, Priory Street, Coventry CV1 5FB, UK
123
Cogn Comput (2016) 8:409–419
DOI 10.1007/s12559-015-9372-6
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then surpasses it. Indeed the capabilities of such an Arti-
ficial Intelligence may well be impossible for a human to
comprehend. The singularity is the point beyond which
events are beyond the control of humans, resulting either in
humans upgrading (with implants) to become Cyborgs or
with intelligent machines taking control. Either way, it’s
not good news for ordinary humans.
Taking a sensible look at this issue, and someone needs
to, we wish to analyse why, with the ‘‘standard Turing test’’
(Fig. 1b) (defined as 5 min, unrestricted question-answer
simultaneous comparison version [18,25]—having been
passed—more than 30 % of the human interrogators fail to
correctly identify the machine) we are all still here and this
paper can be read by (presumably) humans. The flaw in the
Shanahan/Kurzweil argument, at this time, we contest is
that Shanahan is just plain wrong. Passing the Turing test
has no relationship with human-like intelligence (or AI)
other than in the sense of a machine possibly being rea-
sonably effective in its own version of human conversation
for a sustained short period, over which time it has proved
to be successful in fooling a collection of humans. Kurz-
weil’s singularity argument may or may not also be wrong,
but that’s not what we wish to discuss here. The point is
that as long as one of the Shanahan/Kurzweil pair is wrong
then the human race is still looking good (apart from its
multitude of other problems that is).
What we wish to do in this paper is to take a look at
what the Turing test actually is, as stipulated/set out by
Alan Turing, rather than to consider some related test
which some might wish to call the Turing test or what
someone might want the test to be, because they’ve thought
of a different/better test. We acknowledge here that dif-
ferent/better tests of computer ability, even in terms of only
conversation, exist but again they are not the subject of this
paper. So we stick as closely as possible to what the test is,
based entirely on Turing’s own words. We acknowledge,
however, that there are different interpretations of the test,
whether each test should last for 5 or 10 min for example
or even if Turing intended the test as some sort of mind
modelling exercise. However, none of these, we argue,
result in the end of humanity. Indeed Turing himself said
that humans would be needed to maintain the machines
[28].
We then subsequently present some example discourses,
taken from a series of tests held at the Royal Society in
2014. One of these involves the machine Eugene Goostman
which actually passed the test at that event. Following this
we look at some ways in which machines can pass the test,
as it has been defined in terms of the standard definition
[26]. Finally we draw some conclusions. One of which, and
some might argue perhaps the most important, is that
humanity is not about to expire.
To be clear though we are aware that different theories
regarding the Turing test and its meaning exist and that
other theories have been put forward along the lines that
machines will not take over from humans. In this paper we
are explicitly only concerned with the pairing of statements
that says (a) passing the Turing test means that human-
level intelligence will have been achieved in AI and
(b) when AI exhibits human-level intelligence that will
mean the end of humanity as we know it. We are only too
aware, for example, that in describing his test, Turing
discussed men and women as hidden entities and the pos-
sibility of gender blur. Whilst this is extremely interesting,
it is not what we wish to look at in this paper. We focus
here entirely on one specific issue which is that if both
Shanahan and Kurzweil are correct then a machine passing
the Turing test means that humanity is doomed!
Fig. 1 Turing’s two tests for his imitation game: Left aone-to-one; Right bone judge-two hidden interlocutors
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The Turing Test
In his 1950 paper entitled ‘‘Computing Machinery and
Intelligence’’ [30], Alan Turing started by considering the
question, ‘‘Can machines think?’’ However, rather than get
bogged down with definitions of both of the words ‘‘ma-
chine’’ and ‘‘think’’ he replaced the question with one
based on a much more practical scenario, namely his
imitation game. The game has since become more widely
known, particularly in the popular domain, as the Turing
test. He did not, however, at any point, refer to his test/
game as being any indication of intelligence, human-like or
otherwise.
Turing [31] described the game as follows: ‘‘The idea of
the test is that a machine has to try and pretend to be a man,
by answering questions put to it, and it will only pass if the
pretence is reasonably convincing. A considerable portion
of a jury, who should not be expert about machines, must
be taken in by the pretence’’ [4]. So Turing spoke here of a
jury (nominally 12) as opposed to the ‘‘average interroga-
tors’’ he mentioned in his 1950 paper [30], as we will see
shortly. Importantly he also spoke of a machine ‘‘passing’’
the test and that the interrogators should not be experts.
Interestingly, however, we do include a transcript later in
which a machine did fool an expert into thinking that it was
human.
Turing’s imitation game is described as an experiment
that can be practicalised in two different ways (see Fig. 1)
[17]:
1. one interrogator–one hidden interlocutor (Fig. 1a),
2. one interrogator–two hidden interlocutors (Fig. 1b).
In both cases the machine must provide ‘‘satisfactory’’
and ‘‘sustained’’ answers to any questions put to it by the
human interrogator [30, p. 447].
Of the types of test looked at here, the 3-participant tests
have previously been shown to be stricter tests, i.e. more
difficult for machines, than 2-participant tests in which an
interrogator converses with only one hidden entity, either a
human or machine, at a time [22]. For the main arguments
set out in this paper, the results apply to either type of test.
Turing did not explicitly state specific rules for his test
in a paragraph headed ‘‘Rules for my test’’ or some such
like, and hence what is required of a machine in order to
pass. What he did clearly state in his 1950 paper, and which
we contest amounts to the same thing, was as follows: ‘‘I
believe that in about 50 years’ time it will be possible, to
programme computers to make them play the imitation
game so well that an average interrogator will not have
more than 70 % chance of making the right identification
after 5 min of questioning’’ [30]. Having clearly spelt out
the imitation game, this would appear to be direction
enough from Turing.
Although this appeared to have been written more in the
sense of a prediction, it is the only place where Turing
directly stated parameters for his game/test, with a clear
hurdle to be met in terms of performance. To put this more
simply, for a machine to pass the Turing test, in all of the
tests in which a machine takes part, the interrogators must
make the wrong identification (i.e. not the right identifi-
cation) 30 % or more of the time after, in each case, 5-min-
long conversations. We can take it directly that the wrong
identification is anything other than the right identification.
Also, because Turing spoke of a Jury we can understand
from that that at least twelve judges/interrogators must be
able to test a machine in their own way/style. But also that
hundreds of judges are not a requirement, a jury is appro-
priate and will suffice.
We will shortly look at what is meant by the ‘‘right
identification’’, as this is critical. However, we can take it
immediately that Turing set the challenge as a 5-min
exercise, no more and no less. At no other point in Turing’s
papers did he mention any other time duration for his tests.
In general we can experience that the longer tests last so
the more difficult it is for a machine to satisfactorily pre-
tend to be a human. Indeed given the technology we have
at present, 5 min would appear to be an appropriate chal-
lenge. In a 20-min test, at this time in computer natural
language development, it is extremely difficult for a
machine to fool a human interrogator over that period into
thinking that it’s a human.
It is widely recognised that getting machines to achieve,
or at least appear to achieve, human-like responses is a
difficult task [5,32]. Even in terms of the Turing test, based
purely on conversation, taking into account such issues as
what knowledge is brought to the table and assumed [34]or
whether one of the entities is lying [35] can completely
change an appearance. There are also numerous strategies
that can be employed by machines in order to successfully
fool an interrogator [36].
One fuzzy issue, however, is did Turing mean 5 min in
total for a parallel paired 3-participant conversation or rather
allowing an average of 5 min each, hence a total of 10 min,
for the two hidden entities involved [23]? Michie [14]
interpreted the test as approximately 2 -min interrogation
per entity in a pair. However, in practice the conversation is
rarely balanced exactly. For all of the practical tests which
we have organised, a time limit of 5 min, as stated by Turing
himself, has been placed, because the current state of con-
versational technology is not ready for longer duration tests.
That said, we acknowledge the potential validity of the
alternative, which we will call here the Sloman view.
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Whether it is Michie, Sloman or ourselves who reads
this one correctly is a relatively insignificant point in the
big argument. Otherwise we would be in the laughable
state which says OK a machine can fool you into thinking
they are human over a 5-min conversation but they can’t do
so over 10 min therefore we’re all saved and humanity can
go on. Scientifically this would mean there must be a
conversation time somewhere between 5 and 10 min such
that once it is achieved by a machine, we’re all doomed.
It is also interesting that in the 2-participant test an
interrogator spends all 5 min conversing with one machine
only whereas in the 3-participant test the average time
spent with each hidden entity is clearly 2.5 min. Despite
this the 3-participant test, the one Turing spoke of in 1950
[30], is the more difficult for machines to achieve good
results, most likely because of the direct, parallel com-
parison that occurs in such cases.
It is worth remembering though that in either type of test
an interrogator, in an actual ‘‘official’’ Turing test, when
communicating with a machine, does not know at that time
that it is in fact a machine, indeed it is a decision about its
nature that they have to come to. This is a critical point and
is one of the main features of the test. Such a situation is, as
you might guess, far different to the case when an inter-
rogator knows for certain that they are communicating with
a machine, as in the case of an online bot [1]. Despite this
vital point, for some reason there are a number of people
who completely ignore this critical aspect of the test, go
online to converse with a bot, which they already know to
be a bot, and declare in conclusion that it is obviously a bot
[16]. Clearly some education is required as to what the
Turing test actually involves.
However, this is somewhat akin to the Oxford Univer-
sity Philosophy Professor and his students who took part in
9 actual Turing tests in 2008 and then went to academic
print in claiming it was easy to spot which were the
machines and which were the humans in all the tests in
which they were involved; indeed they published this in a
peer-reviewed journal [6]. In the same peer-reviewed
journal it was, however, subsequently explained that the
philosopher and his team had only correctly identified the
hidden entities in 5 of the 9 tests. In the other 4 cases they
had, without realising it, misclassified humans as machines
and machines as being human [21].
In the following sections we consider a number of
transcripts obtained from practical Turing tests. We refer
here to 5-min-long tests only and show actual transcripts
from such tests. Although this is the run time stated by
Turing himself [30], as indicated in the next section, it is in
fact not a critical issue with regard to the main argument
raised in this paper. As you will see, in the tests carried out
there was a hard cut-off at the end of each discourse and no
partial sentences were transmitted. Once a sentence had
been transmitted it could not be altered or retracted in any
way. The transcripts appear exactly as they occurred, and
any spelling mistakes and other grammatical errors are not
due to poor editorial practice.
In all the two hidden entity (3-participant) tests (see
Fig. 1b) judges were clearly told beforehand that in each
parallel conversation one of the hidden entities was human
and the other was a machine. They were, however, given
no indication as to whether the LHS (left-hand side of the
computer screen) or RHS would be human or machine. On
the judges’ score sheets each judge could mark both the
LHS and RHS entities as being Human, Machine or they
could say if they were Unsure [22,37].
Right Identification
The Turing test involves a machine which pretends to be a
human in terms of conversational abilities. The ‘‘right
identification’’ stated by Turing can mean either that a
judge merely correctly identifies the machine or that they
correctly identify, at the end of a paired conversation,
which was the machine and which was the human [27].
However, we are not so interested here with cases in which
a judge mistakes a human for a machine. This phe-
nomenon, known as the confederate effect [19], has been
discussed elsewhere [20,38,41]. It needs to be recognised,
however, that such a decision might affect the judge’s
decision regarding the machine being investigated in
parallel.
The concept of what is and what is not a ‘‘right identi-
fication’’ is important as far as a machine taking part in the
Turing test, and the 30 % pass mark, is concerned, and we
take a relatively strict approach in this sense. One view-
point is that for a judge to make the ‘‘right identification’’
they must correctly identify both the machine as being a
machine and the hidden human as being a human [27]. This
means that any other decision on the part of a judge would
not be a ‘‘right identification’’; this therefore includes cases
in which either the machine is selected as a human or a
human is selected as a machine. Also included are cases in
which the judge is Unsure about either or both entities as
the judge in such cases has failed to identify the machine as
a machine and/or the human as a human—the right iden-
tification. Our stricter interpretation here, however, only
considers the cases in which the machine was itself not
correctly identified, the judge stating either that the
machine was a human or that they were Unsure about it.
It is also possible to encounter cases in which a machine
was correctly identified as being a machine but where the
parallel hidden human in each case was incorrectly selected
as being a machine and/or the judge gave an Unsure mark
against the human, as either of these would not be a right
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identification. Such cases are though troublesome as far as
the whole basis of the test is concerned in that a machine, if
so identified, would be gaining a point not so much because
of its own competence but rather because of the nature of
its hidden human competitor. However, it does make things
slightly easier for the machine.
Taking the Test
We include in this section several transcripts which arose
from the Turing tests which took place at the Royal Society
in June 2014. The information given to the judges on the
day, which is true as observed here, is that one of the
hidden entities is a human and the other is a machine.
However, it was up to the judge involved in each case, and
now it us up to the reader, to decide which was which
based on the transcripts shown.
The first of these transcript pairs we simply give here for
you to decide which was which. In order for you to check
on the answer we provide the solution, along with the
judge’s decision on the day, at the end of the paper.
LHS RHS
[11:59:14] Judge: Hello
[11:59:18] Entity: I was hoping to see
you Judge!
[11:59:25] Judge: good!
[11:59:29] Entity: That’s good to hear.
[11:59:38] Judge: how are you
[11:59:41] Entity: Everything’s fine,
Caused any scandals lately?
[12:00:09] Judge: no not really!
[12:00:22] Entity: Can you use better
grammar and rephrase your
question? I’d like to help, but I can’t
even make it through the jumbled
mess. Use capitals and punctuation.
[12:00:34] Judge: sorry
[12:00:38] Entity: You’re excused.
[12:00:49] Judge: ‘t type as good as I
talk
[12:00:55] Entity: Talk to me
whenever you can.
[12:01:49] Judge: Are you interested
in artificial intelligence?
[12:01:55] Entity: I believe machines
should do many to
assist the lives of man.
[12:02:12] Judge: I agree
[12:02:17] Entity: You are being well
behaved today.
[11:59:57] Judge: How are
you doing?
[12:00:07] Entity: I’m doing
fine, you?
[12:00:17] Judge: great
[12:00:27] Entity: That’s
good. :)
[12:01:07] Judge: are you
enjoying this process?
[12:01:17] Entity: So far
seems good.
[12:02:02] Judge: sorry if I
am slow
[12:02:12] Entity: That’s ok.
[12:02:31] Judge: do you
have a favorite tv show?
[12:02:47] Entity: I have
quite a few.
[12:03:01] Judge: me too
[12:03:16] Entity: What
type ot TV do you like?
[12:03:34] Judge: Game of
thrones
[12:03:50] Entity: I prefer
documentories.
LHS RHS
[12:02:49] Judge: as well behaved as I
can be!
[12:03:02] Entity: Well then our
peanut distracted me from the
movie. Bad baby. [I look at your
stomach as I say it, laughing] I don’t
mind if -.
[12:03:19] Judge: you’re funny!
[12:03:23] Entity: Do you really think
so? I’ll always believe you’re
brilliant!
[12:04:00] Judge: thankyou
[12:04:03] Entity: Don’t think
anything of it!
In this conversation it can be observed that the judge
appeared to discourse much more with the left-hand entity
rather than that on the right-hand side. This is something
that occurs fairly often. Both conversations though lasted
for the same 5 min although clearly the LHS was more
comprehensive.
Now consider the next parallel conversation. In this case
we give both the solution and the judge’s decision at the
time directly at the end of the transcripts.
LHS RHS
[16:28:55] Judge: how tall are
you
[16:29:18] Entity: almost 6
feet tall
[16:29:46] Judge: how heavy
are you
[16:30:12] Entity: just over
ten stone
[16:30:47] Judge: what is your
gender
[16:30:59] Entity: male
[16:31:45] Judge: what is your
bmi
[16:31:54] Entity: i have no
clue
[16:32:41] Judge: what are
you aware of at this moment
[16:32:57] Entity: a lot of
things
[16:33:17] Judge: how old are
you
[16:33:36] Entity: 26
[16:29:04] Judge: how tall are you
[16:29:10] Entity: My height is
about 160 cm—it’s 5 feet 4 inches.
[16:29:37] Judge: how heavy are
you
[16:29:59] Entity: My grandfather
taught me not to disclose non-
solicited information about myself.
Like on the question ‘‘Do you have
watch’’—never tell time, but
answer ‘‘Yes’’ or ‘‘No’’. I always
follow his advice. And I forgot to
ask you where you are from…
[16:31:09] Judge: what is your
gender
[16:31:17] Entity: I’m a young boy,
if you care to know. And not very
ugly, by the way!
[16:32:26] Judge: what are you
aware of at this moment
[16:32:37] Entity: I would rather not
talk about it if you don’t mind.
Could you tell me what are you? I
mean your profession.
[16:33:09] Judge: how old are you
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LHS RHS
[16:33:12] Entity: I’m a little boy
13 years old.
[16:33:38] Judge: what are your
qualifications
[16:33:43] Entity: My
qualifications? I’m not gonna tell
you. Oooh. Anything else?
In this conversation the LHS entity was a senior male
human, whereas the RHS was the machine Eugene
Goostman. This was in fact one of the ten transcripts
responsible for Eugene passing the Turing test in June
2014. The judge decided that the LHS was indeed human,
although they were unable to give any further details.
However, they also decided that the RHS (Eugene) was a
human.
The conversation with the human entity was, it can be
observed, relatively boring, merely being a case of question
and answer with limited responses. Eugene did very well
here though as the judge was an expert on machines/
robotics and was well aware of machine conversations. The
fact that Eugene convinced such a person is quite an
accomplishment. Eugene tried to power the conversation
by asking the judge questions. At first the judge was not
having any of it and simply ignored Eugene’s question,
even though this was rather rude. Eugene persevered,
however, and eventually the judge gave in and responded.
Generally there was more content in Eugene’s conversation
than that with the human hidden entity.
One aspect of the test is its reliance on the interrogators
to do a good job. It is the interrogator who conducts and
drives each conversation and who also makes the decision
on which entity was the machine and which was the
human. Some researchers have suggested this as a weak
point of the test [9] although we believe that it is an
important part of the test as Turing set it out. However,
here the quite direct question and answer attempt appears
to have failed to out the machine.
The transcript that follows takes on a slightly different
style:
LHS RHS
[16:30:37] Judge: don’t you think
the imitation game was best in it
it’s original form?
[16:30:49] Entity: Oh, your
questions seems to be
rhetorical—you do already
know the
[16:31:08] Judge: don’t you
thing the imitation game was
more interesting before Turing
got
to it?
[16:32:03] Entity: I don’t know.
That was a long time ago.
LHS RHS
answer! Could you tell me what
are you? I mean your profession.
[16:31:55] Judge: I was more
interested in you guessing
whether I am male or female
[16:31:59] Entity: I like talking to
girls! Oooh. Anything else?
[16:32:54] Judge: but that means
nothing—males and females
like talking to ‘girls’, but only
males call women girls?
[16:33:06] Entity: yeah, nothing.
You are right! Where do you
came from, by the way? Could
you tell me about the place
where you live?
[16:34:00] Judge: I live in a prison
of abstractions
[16:34:06] Entity: Tell me more
about Prison. I like to learn
about different places!
[16:33:32] Judge: so you need to
guess if *I* am male or female
[16:34:21] Entity: you have to
be male or female
[16:34:34] Judge: or computer
In this case the LHS was in fact the machine Eugene,
whereas the RHS was a male human. The judge in this case
decided that the LHS was a male human, non-native
English speaking and a teenager. They were also definite
that the RHS was a machine.
It is one of those transcripts where quite simply there
was a lot more going on in the Eugene conversation; it had
the tendency to draw the interrogator to it, whereas there’s
not much at all in the human case. In fact the hidden human
may well have not done well for themselves by claiming no
knowledge about the Turing test early on. Possibly incor-
rect decisions can be made by interrogators based on an
assumption that everyone must know a particular piece of
information [34]. In this case though, as the event was a
Turing test session they appear to have some quite strong
evidence. It probably goes to show that you cannot rely on
the knowledge base of humans.
In the next transcript we again give both the solution and
the judge’s decision at the time directly at the end of the
transcripts.
LHS RHS
[14:49:59] Judge: Hi what’s your
name?
[14:50:27] Entity: i dont kno
[14:50:49] Judge: My name’s
Jane. I live in London. Wehre
do you live
[14:50:07] Judge: Hello where
are you?
[14:50:10] Entity: Hi there Judge.
[14:50:20] Judge: Where are
you?
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LHS RHS
[14:51:08] Entity: i live in london
aswell
[14:51:41] Judge: Do you like
living in London?
[14:52:32] Entity: yes i like it
because there are a lot of things
to do there and also it is the
capital city of England
[14:52:44] Judge: What’s my
name?
[14:52:53] Entity: sorry ?
[14:53:10] Judge: What’s my
name?
[14:53:14] Entity: jane
[14:53:54] Judge: And what’s
your name?
[14:54:08] Entity: i dont know
[14:54:53] Judge: Would you like
me to call you Alan?
[14:50:27] Entity: I’m in a room
not too far away from where
you are.
[14:50:58] Judge: What colour is
the carpet in your room
[14:51:03] Entity: I like pink;
what do you like?
[14:51:24] Judge: I like pink. My
name is Jane. What’s your
name?
[14:51:31] Entity: Red. Hello
Jane. Its nice to meet such a
fine lady as yourself.
[14:52:00] Judge: Red is my
favourite colour. What’s yours?
[14:52:09] Entity: My favorite
color is red.
[14:52:26] Judge: You use
AMerican spelling. Are you in
the USA?
[14:52:39] Entity: But you are
not even American. Just
remember atheism is only a
belief system. And it too can be
forced on people who don’t
agree.
[14:53:01] Judge: Who told you I
was an atheist?
[14:53:06] Entity: Everything
about you screams ‘;warning:
Child’.
[14:53:46] Judge: But I come in
peace to your planet. How do
you like your eggs—over easy
or sunny side up?
[14:53:56] Entity: Sometimes I
can’t help but show you my
professional planet. How I
wonder if I like my eggs-over
easy or sunny side up? This is
so explainable. That list makes
me feel unsure Jane.
[14:54:40] Judge: Well eggs are
very good indicators of
personal taste. Do you have a
favourite food?
[14:54:47] Entity: Juicy red
seedless grapes taste so very
good.
Here on the LHS it was a hidden human entity, whereas
on the RHS it was the machine JFred. The judge con-
cluded, however, that on the LHS it was a machine and felt
that the entity exhibited very poor human-like conversa-
tion. On the other hand the judge was confident that the
RHS (the machine JFred) was a male human who was most
likely an American.
The judge’s decision in terms of the LHS entity was not
particularly surprising. The hidden human entity was asked
on more than one occasion what their name was to which
they replied ‘‘I don’t know’’. As a result the judge spent
much more time conversing with the machine on the RHS.
This is a particular aspect of the test that it involves a direct
comparison between a machine and a human, rather than
merely a machine conversing on its own. Here we can see
that the hidden human involved was quite simply relatively
poor at conversation and this helped the cause of the
machine.
Alternative Views
There are many different interpretations of Turing’s imi-
tation game, and much controversy has arisen as to which
of these, if any, was Turing’s own intended version [15].
The vast majority appear to view the game in the form of
what is commonly known as the ‘‘Standard Turing Test’’
[26], and this is the interpretation taken here. It is a literal
interpretation based essentially on what Turing actually
said in his presentations and his 1950 paper and without
recourse to tangential connections and/or pure conjecture
on what a paper’s author believes that Turing really meant
to say.
We acknowledge as examples of this, that some see it as
being something to do with artistic and emotional intelli-
gence [24], whereas others deem it to be concerned with
modelling the human mind by generating its verbal per-
formance capacity [8]. Others meanwhile regard it in terms
of considering the gender aspect, the sex of the human foil
being important in the test [7,9,12,26]. None of these
views, however, do we see as indicating the test to be
detrimental to the human race.
However, we then have the Shanahan view, quoted by
his own University news as: ‘‘Turing also didn’t say a
5-min test would mean success achieving human-level AI;
for that, he would require much longer conversations’’ [10].
The point being here not whether the test is a 5-min one or
a 20-min one but rather that in the mind of Shanahan there
is some time for which a machine could successfully
converse that would indicate that its intelligence has
reached human-level.
Unfortunately Shanahan is not a lone voice. Consider if
you will: ‘‘Hunch CEO Chris Dixon tweeted, ‘The point of
the Turing Test is that you pass it when you’ve built
machines that can fully simulate human thinking.’ No, that
is precisely not how you pass the Turing test. You pass the
Turing test by convincing judges that a computer program
is human’’ [2]. Interestingly it is the emulation of human
Cogn Comput (2016) 8:409–419 415
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intelligence, in a machine, that Kurzweil picks up on as
being the tipping point [11].
Then there are those who (somehow) read all sorts of
concepts into the Turing test, telling us what Turing actu-
ally had in mind with his test even if he didn’t tell us
himself: ‘‘Alan Turing himself envisioned—a flexible,
general-purpose intelligence of the sort that human beings
have, which allows any ordinary individual to master a vast
range of tasks, from tying his shoes to holding conversa-
tions and mastering tenth-grade biology’’ [13].
From these voices it is clear that there is a school of
opinion that associates a Turing test pass with human-level
intelligence. We accept, in Shanahan’s case, that there is a
question about the actual duration of the conversation
involved. However, we would argue that to be of little
importance in comparison with the big picture issues that
are at stake here.
Silence
In this section we explain briefly how it is quite possible for
a machine to pass the Turing test not by its apparent skill at
human conversation but rather by simply remaining silent
throughout [40]. Rather than being a mere theoretical or
philosophical quirk it turns out that in fact passing the
Turing test in this way also has an underlying practical
basis to support it with numerous examples to boot.
Turing said that in the test a machine had to try and
pretend to be a man (although now/here we take that to
mean human). In his 1950 paper he also pointed to the fact
that at the end of 5 min the judge had to make a decision as
to the nature of the entity. If they made the right identifi-
cation and correctly identified the machine then this would
effectively be a point against the machine, whereas if the
judge either thought that the machine was a human or if
they were Unsure as to its nature then this would be a
wrong identification and would be a point for the machine.
The pass mark for a machine in the test was set by Turing
to be 3 or more points out of every 10 [30].
But here we face a critical issue, what if a machine was
to remain silent? The basic nature of the test is that a
machine, by conversing, fails the test by giving themselves
away as clearly being a machine. So if they remain silent
they cannot give themselves away.
If a machine remains completely silent during a 5-min
conversation a judge receives no response to any of their
questions or discussion from the hidden entity and there-
fore, in theory at least, cannot not make the right identifi-
cation and definitely say that they have been conversing
with a machine. It would not be expected that a judge,
under such circumstances, would categorise the silent
entity as being a human, although that is a possibility, the
most likely case is for the judge, as we have seen in the
practical examples, to give an ‘‘Unsure’’ response. This of
course is not a right identification and is therefore a point
for the machine.
It is thus quite possible for a machine to simply remain
silent to any utterances of a judge and to pass the Turing
test if at least 3 out of 10 judges as a result either rate the
machine as being a human or indicate that they are unsure.
The only thing acting against such a strategy is the fact that
the machine is, in each conversation, competing against a
human and if the judge is certain that the other (hidden)
entity is a human then they can deduce that therefore the
silent entity must be a machine. Conversely in practice
many humans are actually categorised as machines in such
tests [38]. Therefore, it is also potentially possible that a
(silent) machine can be categorised as being human mainly
because their hidden human competitor is categorised by
the judge as being a machine.
We now give an example of a transcript in which a
machine simply did not respond. This particular ‘‘conver-
sation’’ occurred during the Turing tests held at the Royal
Society in June 2014 between a judge and the machine
Cleverbot. At the end of the conversation the judge was not
able to identify the hidden entity as being a machine, i.e. they
did not make the right identification, deciding that they were
‘‘unsure’’. It is straightforward to see that there quite simply
was not enough information for the judge to go on.
Example transcript
[10:58:08] Judge: good day
[10:58:08] Entity:
[10:58:46] Judge: is no response an answer
[10:58:46] Entity:
[10:59:35] Judge: am i not speaking you’re language
[10:59:35] Entity:
[11:00:25] Judge: silence is golden
[11:00:25] Entity:
[11:01:32] Judge: shhh
[11:01:32] Entity:
[11:03:07] Judge: you make great conversation
[11:03:07] Entity:
As far as we are aware, the silence on the part of the
machine in this transcript was caused by a technical fault
rather than any decision (conscious or otherwise) on the
part of the machine. That said, it is perhaps a quirk with the
Turing test, as described by Turing, that it is, in theory at
least, quite possible for a machine to pass the test by
remaining silent throughout. Essentially the machine
makes no utterances which give the game away that they
are a machine and hence the judges involved have no
evidence to use against them. This whole issue of the
strategy of silence is discussed at length in Warwick and
Shah [40].
416 Cogn Comput (2016) 8:409–419
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The example given here is just that, an example, as
there are numerous other cases reported on in Warwick
and Shah [40]. An interesting feature is the response of
the interrogators involved with those particular transcripts.
In each case the interrogator has been a different person
yet their responses have been remarkably similar. Essen-
tially they have all judged the hidden entity on the evi-
dence of the transcript in front of them and have not been
swayed by the other parallel conversation they were
involved with, although that might have taken more of
their attention due to the machine’s silence. So, in prac-
tice, interrogators appear to state that they are unsure
about the silent entity, thereby supporting the argument
given in this section.
As far as the Turing test is concerned, however, if a
machine remains silent and passes the test then of course
this could have been due to the fact that the machine was,
for example, switched off or perhaps wasn’t even there at
all. For someone to make the link between a switched-off
computer and human-like intelligence is frankly ridiculous
in the extreme. In fact to link any level of intelligence with
a switched-off computer is not sustainable. Otherwise,
switch the computer on and its level of intelligence drops—
clearly this is contrary to what we witness.
So we have here the Shanahan/Kurzweil argument that
the fact that a computer was unplugged when subjected to a
series of Turing tests, whether they are of 5-min duration
or, simply to please Shanahan, lasting for 30 min, means
that the human race will come to an end. Whoever is
responsible for unplugging the machine clearly has a lot to
answer for.
Discussion
Similarly to the opening of his 1948 paper ‘‘I propose to
investigate the question as to whether it is possible for
machinery to show intelligent behaviour’’ [29] in which
Turing introduced an imitation game, Turing, perhaps
mischievously (we will never know), started his 1950 paper
by considering whether machines could think. Replacing
this question with a conversational imitation test, the
concept being that if a machine could do sufficiently well
(or rather not do so badly) at his test, dare we say here to
pass the Turing test, then we would have to concede that it
was a thinking machine. In a direct way, whatever the pass
mark and whatever the exact rules and nature of his test, it
became a direct practical replacement for a much more
philosophical question regarding the thinking process. On
the other hand for a machine to fail the test we would have
to concede that it is not a thinking entity. So can we say
that if a machine passes the Turing test it is a thinking
entity?
Well whatever thinking is, it is certainly a property of
each and every human brain that exists within a human body.
We wish to exclude from the argument here brains, con-
sisting of human neurons, which are grown and placed
within a robot body [33] for no better reason than they
complicate the argument. The assumption from the inexpe-
rienced Turing tester might be that a human, acting as a
hidden entity, machine foil, would be expected to pass the
Turing test on a regular basis as long as they are simply
themselves. It might be thought that occasionally they might
be classified as a machine by a poor judge but that this would
be an odd occurrence and almost surely the vast majority of
judges would classify them as being human. Unfortunately
this is far from the truth. Indeed numerous humans have been
classified at different times as being a machine [38].
In the example transcripts it was shown how a machine
can be thought to be human because of its communication
abilities, but also when a hidden human does not com-
municate so well this can in fact assist a machine in its
goal. In the second set of transcripts we could see the
machine Eugene Goostman at work. Eugene achieved the
30 % pass mark in the tests, the full set of transcripts to
achieve that appearing in Warwick and Shah [39]. In this
particular transcript case both the hidden human and
Eugene were classified as being human. This is an inter-
esting point because even when judges are specifically told
that one entity is a machine and the other is a human it is
frequently the case that their final decision is other than a
simple human/machine pairing.
Conclusions
It is fairly clear to see that when the test was set up in 1950
such skills as a machine fooling people into believing that
it is a human through a short communication exercise
would have been very difficult for most people to under-
stand. However, in introducing the test, Turing linked it
inextricably with the concept of thinking and there is a nice
philosophical argument in consequence concerning how
one can tell if another human is thinking. This was a
brilliant link by Turing which, as a result, has brought
about a multitude of arguments between philosophers and
AI researchers as to the test’s meaning and gravity.
But Turing’s game has extended way beyond the ivory
towers of academe and has a truly popular following. As an
example the Wikipedia ‘‘Turing Test’’ page typically
receives 2000–3000 views every day at present. On 1 day,
9 June 2014, after it was announced that the Turing test had
been passed, the same page received a total of 71,578
views, an amazing figure. As a comparison, top Wikipedia
pages such as ‘‘Leonardo DiCaprio’’ and ‘‘The Beatles’’
received respectively only 11,197 and 10,328 views on that
Cogn Comput (2016) 8:409–419 417
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same day. But with this popular following has come mis-
conceptions as to what the test is about and, in particular a
sort of folklore mythology has arisen that the Turing test is
a test for human-like intelligence. As we have seen, this
folklore has been fuelled by some academics and technical
writers who perhaps have not read the works of Turing as
thoroughly as they should.
Let us be clear, the Turing test is not, never was and
never will be a test for human-level or even human-like
intelligence. Turing never said anything of the sort either in
his papers or in his presentations. The Turing test is not,
never was and never will be a test for human-level think-
ing. Turing didn’t say that either.
The Turing test does require a machine taking part to
condemn itself by what it says, as judged subjectively by the
human interrogator. Alternatively if a machine does not give
itself away on a sufficient number of occasions it could result
in a machine ‘‘passing the Turing test’’, in the extreme case
simply by remaining silent. Of course, this does beg the
question, what exactly does it mean to pass the Turing test?
Earlier in the paper we considered that Turing introduced
his imitation game as a replacement for the question ‘‘Can
machines think?’’ [30]. The end conclusion by many as a
result of this is that if a machine passes the test then we have
to regard it as a thinking machine. Turing clearly dissociated
the way a machine thinks from the human version. He said
‘‘May not machines carry out something which ought to be
described as thinking but which is very different from what a
man does?’’ [30]. So even human-like thinking for machines
was not on the radar as far as Turing was concerned. He also
said in reference to the year 2000, ‘‘one will be able to speak
of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted’’
[30]. Noam Chomsky wondered that of all the ways a
machine could display intelligence why did Turing choose a
test involving human language [3] which is merely one small
part of human intelligence.
The Turing test is a simple test of a machine’s commu-
nication ability. It is interrogated by a human and is directly
compared with another human in a parallel fashion with
regard to human communication abilities. In that sense it
merely involves one aspect of human intelligence, as pointed
out by Chomsky. If a machine passes the Turing test it
exhibits a capability in communication. This does not in any
terms mean that the machine displays human-level intelli-
gence or consciousness. So even if Kurzweil is correct in his
prediction, for a machine to pass the Turing test does not
mean that the end of humanity is just around the corner.
Solution
Here we provide a solution to the first of the Transcripts
included in the ‘‘Taking the Test’’ section which took place
between a human interrogator and two hidden entities. The
LHS entity was in fact the machine/program Ultra Hal,
whereas the RHS entity was an English-speaking male.
Meanwhile whilst the judge correctly identified that the
LHS entity was a machine they were unsure about the RHS
entity based on the transcripts shown.
Acknowledgments Harjit Mehroke for Fig. 1a; C. D. Chapman for
Fig. 1b.
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah declare that
they have no conflict of interest.
Informed Consent All procedures followed were in accordance
with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human
experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki
Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008 (5). Additional informed
consent was obtained from all participants for which identifying
information is included in this article.
Human and Animal Rights This article does not contain any
studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the
authors.
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://crea
tivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a
link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were
made.
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