Turing Test Books

Can a computer program running on a computer demonstrate aspects of human intelligence? If so, what tests could be performed to demonstrate this?

Well, it is easy to think of some tests. Here are seven simple ones. 1) Look up a word in a dictionary. 2) Add a very long column of numbers. 3) Play Chess really well. 4) Play Go really well. 5) Solve a really difficult research problem in theoretical physics. 6) Write a really good novel. 7) Compose a really good classical symphony.

Today, computers have passed tests 1), 2), and 3). But they play chess well by using a very poor program indeed, relying instead on a computer that is extremely fast and has plenty of memory. We're seeing really good computers. But the programs we're seeing are awful.

Maybe better tests would be to see if a team of a human plus a computer could do much better than two humans with no computer at each of those seven tasks. And here, I'm sure the answer is yes to many of these seven tasks, and could easily be yes to all of them.

Still, those who work in the field of artificial intelligence have wanted to come up with programs that exhibit some intelligent features. And one test they have tried is one proposed by Turing in 1950: if a human or computer may be in the next room and you exchange messages with her, him, or it, (maybe at a rate of one message every 15 seconds), can you tell with better than 70% accuracy after 5 minutes if the entity in the other room is human or computer?

The book discusses whether or not such a test has much to do with intelligence or artificial intelligence. And it describes the failure of programs to pass that test so far.

In 2000, several programs were entered into a contest to try to mimic a human in this manner. No judge thought a program was in fact a human. And worse than that, the book tells us that all nine of the following questions were answered correctly by all the humans, while no computer got any of the nine questions right:

1) What is the color of a blue truck?
2) Where is Sue's nose when Sue is in her house?
3) What happens to an ice cube in a hot drink?
4) Altogether how many feet do four cats have?
5) How is the father of Andy's mother related to Andy?
6) What does the letter 'M' look like when turned upside down?
7) What comes next after A1, B2, C3?
8) Reverse the digits in 41.
9) PLEASE IMITATE MY TYPING STYLE.

That shows how utterly the programs failed Turing's test.

In short, programs today are horrible at understanding, reasoning, learning, judgment, and creativity.

I liked this book. It showed that no matter what one thinks of machine intelligence, AI people have made shockingly little progress in the past fifty years.

This was a daring approach that could have fallen flat on its face. However, the author pulls off the task of writing from three peoples perspectives well, especially considereing that two of those people are widely read authors themselves. The pain and frustration inherent in the Doctor at the end are palpable and really topped off a very good book.

"Turing Test" needs to go up there with "Interference" as "Doctor Who" books that break the mold and then stamp up and down on the pieces. Narrated, in turn, by fictionalized versions of Alan Turing, Graham Greene and Joseph Heller, this is an outside-looking-in "Who" book that's much more about character than outwitting the latest generic alien threat. Don't expect to be given all the puzzle pieces as to What's Going On, because that's not the point.

The tone shifts wonderfully throughout the book to reflect the styles of the narrators in question - the Heller section in particular brings back "Catch-22" vividly. The Doctor is terribly interesting, here, with his motivation stripped down to very human essentials. This book has probably made the best use of its setting of any of the books about the eighth Doctor exiled on Earth.

Buy it. Read it. Thank yourself later.

THE TURING TEST is one story told by three authors. Mathematician Alan Turing begins the tale, novelist Graham Greene continues it to the best of his abilities, and finally CATCH-22 author Joseph Heller completes the story. Long time readers of the Doctor Who line will no doubt be quaking in fright throughout the final sections - not because of the writing or fear of a manic Yossarian, but from prior exposure to Paul Leonard's books where the endings are often short, hurried or just plain missing in action. Fortunately, this is a book that holds together extremely well throughout its entire 242 page run.

This is an extremely well crafted story. Since this is essentially one story told from three separate viewpoints, there is a certain (albeit small) amount of overlapping. At many times in later sections, I would be eagerly flipping back to earlier portions to revisit an event that had previously been described. Every time I did, I would be rewarded by the new insight or the different perspective (or just the wonderful bickering between the narrators). It's constructed very well and is quite clever once you realize some of the stuff that Leonard is subtly slipping into the story. The attention to detail is quite good and certainly very impressive.

As in CASUALTIES OF WAR, we get a slightly different view of the Doctor depending on which narrator is in control of the story's pen. Each one sees the man differently based on their own prejudices and background. This arc is being handled rather well, and the ending of this particular book is powerful in terms of the individual story being told, and also in the larger context. I'm fairly surprised with how effective it ended up being.

As with the previous two books, the story doesn't end with everything totally spelled out for the reader. But I think this works to much better effect here in THE TURING TEST than in either of those two tales. Here, we have exactly enough framework constructed in order to form one's own conclusions without going into too much detail. As this is a completely character based story, the specifics are entirely irrelevant to the narrative. The book ends exactly where it should, with the Doctor confused and ultimately alone, frustrated at the very last.

All in all, this is a very impressive piece of writing. Each of the three narrators have interesting voices that serve the story well. While the book drags a bit during parts of the middle Greene section, the rest more than makes up for them. Highly recommended, as this is something that the books should be doing more of.

Whenever I open a Paul Leonard "Doctor Who" novel of late, I feel dread in the pit of my stomach. I've come to expect short books with 200 pages of terrific writing, and 40 pages of a haphazard sloppy conclusion which has the feel of something written on a newspaper in an airport barber shop.

"The Turing Test" also comes at a critical time -- it's the third book of the Caught-On-Earth arc. Our Doctor, memory gone, friends gone, TARDIS inoperable, has been stranded for 45 years, and is only just beginning to piece together that he's not human. It's Leonard's task to portray the Doctor's first escape attempt -- and also the first appearance of bona-fide outer space aliens since this arc began. Oh, and it's World War II.

On the face of it, then, this is a book that needs heavy Doctor involvement -- it's the first serious wrinkle to the character of this tabula rasa Doctor we've had over the past few books. But Leonard chooses to tell the story from the point of three real-life narrators -- Alan Turing, Graham Greene, and Joseph Heller -- each of whom tell a bit and piece of the story before dying, and then pass the tale to the next author.

This is classic Paul Leonard on two grounds -- he gets to kill characters off, *and* he gets to leave a story unfinished not just once, but two times over in the same book! I was dreading the final Joseph Heller segment, but to my surprise and delight, this is the best of all, the most manic writing and (arguably) the most sensible standpoint of the three narrators. This portion I finished in one night. The Graham Greene section felt like a slight letdown -- the narrative POV didn't seem as careful (or intentionally careless) as the Heller or Turing bits. I'm also leery of reading the memoir of someone who's about to take his own life -- the Turing chapters are seemingly dictated in his final hours, and the endless self-deprecation seems intrusive -- but on the whole these chapters are a good way to begin the tale.

The Doctor's final revelation -- that, like Li Hsen Chang, and so many other stooges and collaborators we saw in TV "Doctor Who", he's been duped and left behind, and that he now must become less selfish -- is really quick and glossed over. Fortunately, this "off-screen" realization is in keeping with the rest of the book, so it's a forgivable sin.

Some of the endless recitations on religion and morality and, even worse, science, are rubbish. So is the final segment, with our heroes playing out a silly fantasy as Dresden burns. But it's well-written, fast-moving rubbish. Maybe I won't dread the final chapters of Paul Leonard's next book.

When I was a youngster the Doctor Who novelisations produced by Target sparked my interest in reading. The likes of Terrance Dicks, Gerry Davis, Ian Marter, and Malcolm Hulke provided me with much pleasure and led me to explore more of the local library before I ventured into "more serious" fiction. Those early novels were formulaic and this is wittily shown in an essay by Paul Magrs, a wonderful British novelist whose work seems to draw on magical realism from Gabriel Marquez and Terrance Dicks, where he explains how these early Target books influenced his writing. In those early Target books certain nouns always had the same qualifying adjectives. Pockets were capacious. Hair was "a mass of curls" or "an unruly mop".

It had been some years since I read a Doctor Who novel, and it was Paul Magrs move into the stable of BBC writers that led me to read one or two of the recent novels. The books today are very different to the fiction of fifteen or more years ago. They are well written adult science fiction. Things do not always work out for the best. Life is not simple. Characters are no longer brief descriptions recalling much enjoyed television stories but are fleshed out, alive.

The Turing Test is a fine example of the modern Doctor WHo novel, and indeed may be a level or two above the norm. Set in the Second World War and featuring as central characters Alan Turing, codebreaker, Graham Greene, spy and occasional novelist, and Joseph Heller, pilot and future novelist; the story features the eighth incarnation of the Doctor. Stranded on earth he has lost his memory, and is wandering waiting for a meeting in St Louis in 2001. It features codes, and aliens; but also meditations on sex and sexuality, the value of humanity, and the nature of fighting.

The novel is divided into three sections. One written from the perspective of Turing, one Greene, one Heller. Each is in the first person. The conceit in lesser hands would have failed but Paul Leonard mimics the styles of the latter two well, and provides a distinctive voice to the lonely Turing. As someone that has read a lot of Greene lately I feel that Leonard's writing evoked something of Greeneland.

The particular value of Leonard's style and structure is that in giving each character an opportunity to speak their character can be revealed in a manner that does not require revelation upon revelation. Further, each character's perspective being very different - from Turing's naivety, through Greene's bitter cynicism, to Heller's battling pacifism - we are shown different facets of the Doctor, the central character. For a character with a huge past (to his fanbase) placed in a story arc based on a breakdown and terrible amnesia, this novel succeeds in casting new light on him.

It is an impressive adult sci-fi novel. Mr Leonard is to be congratulated.

Readers are referred to the first novel in the arc, The Burning by Justin Richards, and Paul Magrs The Scarlet Empress, for other very good examples of the new Doctor Who novels.

The Turing test is one of the most popular tests for judging whether a machine is intelligent, and is one that for many years was accepted uncritically. This has had both good and bad consequences for the field of artificial intelligence, but has certainly been good for the philosophical community. Debates on the Turing test have filled the philosophical literature, and continue to this day. Fortunately, many researchers in artificial intelligence have moved away from the assumption that the Turing test is a useful guideline for assessing machine intelligence. In the years ahead it may become merely an historical curiosity, possibly fading into insignificance because of the presence of (non-human) thinking machines brought about the very people who chose to ignore its validity or utility and got on with the actual construction of these kinds of machines.

This book gives a good overview of the history of the Turing test, includes three of the original papers of Turing, and also gives what the editor of the book calls "precursors" to the subject. As examples of the latter, he includes some writings of the philosopher Rene Descartes and Julien Mettrie. Many other papers are included, some of these written by well-known philosophers and researchers in artificial intelligence, and the editor includes commentary on some of these papers at various places in the book. Most, if not all, of the discussion in this book is purely philosophical, and therefore does not assist those who are genuinely interested in building intelligent machines. The book therefore will be useless to the collection of researchers engaged in the design and construction of intelligent machines. It will however be very interesting to philosophers, who are not troubled by the gigantic conceptual spaces that are constructed by the deliberations over the Turing test, and they will be able to find ample opportunity to indulge themselves in the proliferation of thought experiments and "impossibility proofs" that always accompany philosophical discussion of machine intelligence.