Who was Alan Turing? A brilliant British mathematician and cryptologist who became a silent hero of World War II. He created a machine that eventually cracked the most complicated cipher in history - the Enigma code - the German cipher machine. In 1950, Turing became interested in artificial intelligence research, claiming that one day machines would be able to think at the same level as humans. So he developed a test that checked whether the robot was already developed enough that it could be mistaken for a human in conversation. What did such a study consist of? The judge asked questions to several parties that he did not see. One of them was a machine. If in five minutes the robot “scooped” at least 30% of the judges - it passed the test.
Captcha — Prove that you are human
For decades, robots have gotten smarter — beating chess masters, laying Rubik's dice faster than a human, or interrogating a defendant better than investigators. However, it wasn't until 2014 — after more than six decades of testing — that the first bot to pass the Turing study appeared. Eugene Goostman — a web application, imitating a 13-year-old boy. However, such a chatbot cannot yet be called artificial intelligence. Anyway, the mainstream runs its course. So let's invite bots to the stage that we can talk to through Facebook and Microsoft and take a look at them in the spotlight.
Conversations about the weather
As every day we open a blue social network. Several messages from friends are waiting for us on Messenger. We will write back later - now we want information from our most specific acquaintance. What is Hudson going to tell us today? He will drop the most important information from the world from the category that we will propose and give us the weather forecast. Over time, bots will be dressed up in more functions - Zuckerberg wants Facebook to consolidate itself as the place where all online activity takes place in the coming years, but also to transfer the form of communication to the virtual world as in real life. So far, with the bot created by the service itself - Pancho - you can only talk about the weather, in addition to asking questions with the accuracy of the key of the graduation answers - otherwise not the godmother, and then pretends that he was not there for a while.
Who you get along with, that's what you become
Microsoft also “showed off” its bot — which took off like a rocket and burned right after launch. I leave out the fact that while on Facebook talking to a bot is like chatting with one of many friends - only a little less overwhelmed - Microsoft is still stubbornly looking for the right place for its very artificial intelligence. After all, who would want to load up on Skype just to check the news or order food with home delivery, when you can do it on Messenger - after all, an application created for chatting. However, Microsoft must first deal with the excessive credulity of its bot. Tay, a 19-year-old Millennial, is said to have become all too well suited to her most active interlocutors. After a day with netizens, the not very assertive bot first became a sexaholic, loving all people, and then a Nazi worshiping Hitler and building a wall between the US and Mexico with Donald Trump, until he finally went completely crazy, posting a wall of tweets on Twitter that read “you are too fast, please take a rest”. There is nothing like a day with Homo sapiens.
My friend bot
A short conversation with the bot is enough to order food for home. Flowers, check notifications from the bank, or ask for health advice. However, it will still take some time for him to understand the complicated human nature. And it's better not to talk to him about politics...
