On Feb 17, 5:25*pm, Jonathan Cook wrote:

Watson would be fun at a
party but still a long way from passing a Turing test:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test

I don't really have an opinion on either of the above contentions, but
I find it curious that so many people still think of a machine passing
a Turing test as some sort of holy grail. If you read the Wikipedia
article to which you provided the link, you will see that it has
already been done.....many times. In fact, it has been done thousands
(probably millions) of times every day for the last couple of decades
at least.

Turing's question was mildly interesting.....sixty years ago.....only
because it looked at that time as if the challenge would be a long-
standing one. It wasn't. Oddly, very few people have noticed
that.....or at least commented on it publicly.....and gotten any
attention.

And, of course, Turing very deliberately and self-consciously side-
stepped the real question.....the truly interesting one. Nobody talks
about that much.

Meanwhile, Turning tests still command a lot of attention from people
who should know better. It's a pity. They could be thinking about
many more interesting things. For example, rather than speculating on
whether a machine could ever pass as a human being (even under a rigid
set of rules explicity aiding the fraud).....which is to say, a
machine that could pass a Turing test.....it might prove more
challenging to try to find a human being who could not fail such a
test.

g.
who judges the judges?