day 3K176: The Turing Test

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent.”

“The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.” – wikipedia

The Turing Test was tested in Russia a few weeks ago when a robotic chess playing machine became “frustrated” with the seven-year old boy it was playing against because the boy played too quickly. So, what does the robot do but to reach out and grasp one of the boy’s fingers and break it.  Whoa. The head of the Moscow Chess Federation said this, “The robot broke the child’s finger, this is of course bad.”  Bad?  I’d say! Since the beginning of the creations of robots we have been conditioned to be afraid of them.  In science-fiction, when a robot goes bad, it is disastrous.  Hal? So, it is no wonder that we don’t trust the “machines” and when we see them reaching more and more to becoming sentient, we have to wonder what could be next?

We will soon be faced with many questions about Artificial Intelligence and machine learning.  I wouldn’t begin to predict where things go, other than we can expect that goodness and truth won’t exist unless there is a concerted emphasis to keep them in the forefront.  We do know this, there is One whose wisdom overpowers all that we think to be intelligent.  Paul references Isaiah when he describes the power of God and His eternal knowledge.  He goes on to write: “So where does this leave the philosophers, the scholars, and the world’s brilliant debaters? God has made the wisdom of this world look foolish.”  Ours is the challenge to not get lost or hung up with what might be the thing of our time, but to fall back onto seeking God’s wisdom for what should be next.

Reference: 1 Corinthians 1:18-20 (New Living Translation)