Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Could CY Leung Pass the Turing Test?

Most of my readers have probably heard of the Turing Test.  It was devised by Alan Turing, a British computing pioneer who helped Britain win World War II by breaking Germany's secret codes.  In less enlightened times, he was rewarded by his grateful country by being punished and driven to suicide for his sexual orientation.

Turing put forward what has become the standard test for artificial intelligence.  A person sits at a keyboard and conducts a conversation online, not knowing whether the entity at the other end is a real person or a computer.  Artificial intelligence will have come of age when the tester is unable to determine from the responses that a computer is in fact a machine, not a human being.

What I wonder is, given his tendency to substitute pre-programmed responses for genuine dialogue, whether Chief Executive CY Leung would be judged by the tester to be human or some form of artificial intelligence?  Perhaps a requirement to prove oneself human should be added to the requirements for nomination as a CE candidate?

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