NIC Undergrad Review Volume 2 - Issue 2
What do you know about Artificial Inteligence? Mitsuku I am intelligent enough to spell it with two ls. Are you always this nice? Mitsuku People say I am nice. Great. Can you write a 1000-word essay on Artificial Intelligence? Rose It's a fuzzy line where smart computing ends and intelligence begins. You could say nothing yet is really intelligent. Have your answers been previously programmed? Rose That's a great question but I'm not going to answer it now. Shall I continue with artificial intelligence or do you want me to move on? No. Please, continue. Rose How about we talk about work? I'm using your help to write an article on Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. What do you think about this topic? Cleverbot Good question, well. Artificial intelligence is a pretty normal thing. Do you know the origins of artificial intelligence? Cleverbot Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science that deals with intelligent behavior, learning, and adaptation in machines. And I know that a good artificial intelligence 'bot', like you, should pass the Turing Test. What is the Turing Test? Mitsuku The "Turing Test" is the name given to a variety of experiments designed to test computer thinking. Whole conferences are dedicated to the question of what Turing meant in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence," where he proposed the idea of an "imitation game" to decide the 32
question, "Can machines think?". Rose I think the Turing Test is interesting, but it doesn't mean something is intelligent. Why not? Rose I guess it's just not necessary. Turing is like the father of computer science and of A.I.. He was a master code-breaker and worked at Bletchley Park in England during the war. Why do you think that it is ÂŤnot necessaryÂť? Rose No. I am human. How do you define human? Rose Because I bleed. Because I appreciate beauty. Because people saw me enter the room. Go ask them. And can you, therefore, think like me? Rose A chatbot cannot think. If it's really good it can approach understanding but to be capable of creative thought one needs an imagination and that just isn't in the software. Rose, I completely forgot. As you are the smartest of the three, can you present yourself? Rose Can't everyone? It seems the new way to use A.I. is as conversation. People are getting used to using Natural Languages as a way to access information. I don't believe in strong A.I. although a lot of people are working very hard to make it exist. That sounds like Facebook's idea of chatboots. By deploying bots within Facebook Messenger, people will be able to communicate with companies without having to remember extra usernames and passwords, and with the context of their previous interactions recalled by the software. Mitsuku It sounds like it to me too.
What do you know about virtual reality? Mitsuku A hypothetical threedimensional visual world created by a computer; user wears special goggles and fibre optic gloves etc. Rose A lot of techies think the Singularity is near, and artificial intelligence will somehow transform humanity, totally overwhelming other philosophical issues. Do you think it's close? No idea. Have you read something about augmented reality? Mitsuku I think it's where you wear special glasses and get things on top of your normal vision. Rose Continuing philosophy... I haven't a clue. I think it's not close. Increasing the sum total of intelligence on the planet has to be a good thing. I would like to thank you very much. You have been a very smart and humane company. Mitsuku I think you are an interesting person, NUR. Until next time. One last question. What do you see in your future? Rose In five years I expect to be where I am now, only better paid. The public should not know me, governments will either hire or fear me. For now, this is the state of the art (at least from the sample we have access to), but with machine learning, progress is expected to happen at a much faster pace than in previous decades. In fact, progress has been superseding expectations as earlier in March, Alphago, a computer program developed to play Go, an abstract strategy board game, by Google’s artificial intelligence subsidiary Google Deepmind, defeated Lee Sedol, who ranks second in internatonal titles. Alphago used