Month: June 2014

No, A ‘Supercomputer’ Did NOT Pass The Turing Test For The First Time

Okay, almost everything about the story is bogus. Let’s dig in:

It’s not a “supercomputer,” it’s a chatbot. It’s a script made to mimic human conversation. There is no intelligence, artificial or not involved. It’s just a chatbot.

Plenty of other chatbots have similarly claimed to have “passed” the Turing test in the past (often with higher ratings). Here’s a story from three years ago about another bot, Cleverbot, “passing” the Turing Test by convincing 59% of judges it was human (much higher than the 33% Eugene Goostman) claims.

It “beat” the Turing test here by “gaming” the rules — by telling people the computer was a 13-year-old boy from Ukraine in order to mentally explain away odd responses.
The “rules” of the Turing test always seem to change. Hell, Turing’s original test was quite different anyway.

As Chris Dixon points out, you don’t get to run a single test with judges that you picked and declare you accomplished something. That’s just not how it’s done. If someone claimed to have created nuclear fusion or cured cancer, you’d wait for some peer review and repeat tests under other circumstances before buying it, right?

The whole concept of the Turing Test itself is kind of a joke. While it’s fun to think about, creating a chatbot that can fool humans is not really the same thing as creating artificial intelligence. Many in the AI world look on the Turing Test as a needless distraction.

Oh, and the biggest red flag of all. The event was organized by Kevin Warwick at Reading University. If you’ve spent any time at all in the tech world, you should automatically have red flags raised around that name. Warwick is somewhat infamous for his ridiculous claims to the press, which gullible reporters repeat without question. He’s been doing it for decades.

Have a look at the original article from over at Techdirt to read some more analysis of why the claims are most likely false.

Wil Wheaton Discusses TV, Cord-Cutting, Piracy…

I’m just going to copy what JP Jones wrote in a comment at the article over at Techdirt:

Huh, imagine that. The first episode is available to watch legally, and a lot of people watch it legally. The second episode isn’t…and isn’t watched as much. Imagine that.

I’m suddenly very interested in this show. If I can watch it legally, I will…if not, I’ll probably watch it anyway. I understand the argument of “support the artists!” Totally get it. But here’s the thing; if you won’t sell me your product, I can’t buy it. If I can’t buy it, I can’t support it.

Here’s the problem that I (and a lot of people here on Techdirt) have. We aren’t going to buy stuff that’s worthless to us just to buy the stuff we do want. It’s sort of like saying “well, you want some new tires, and we want you to support us, so here is some new tires…but you can only buy them along with this new car.” You already have a car, you say, and it works perfectly fine. “Sorry! Pay for the whole car or nothing.”

Offer us the service we want at a reasonable price and we’ll buy it. Note that “reasonable prices” are set by what the consumer is willing to pay, not what the seller wants you to pay.

Note that this is directed to the cable companies, not Will Wheaton. Will Wheaton rocks.

Spying is a big deal. If you’re spying on a politician.

Spying on regular citizens? Not so much.

Germany To Begin Formal Investigation Into NSA Surveillance — But Only Of Angela Merkel

Germany’s federal prosecutor has launched the country’s first formal investigation into the activities of the NSA in Germany, specifically the U.S. intelligence agency’s reported bugging of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.

Harald Range said on Wednesday that the other potential avenue of investigation — that of the surveillance of the German people — remained open, though no investigation was being launched yet due to a lack of evidence.

So spying on all of Germany is perfectly fine. Spying on Angela Merkel is apparently not fine.

Update on the update on the NSA vs EFF case

Judge Says NSA Can Continue To Destroy Evidence (Techdirt)

In short: because we’re ordered to delete some data by the law to avoid spying on Americans, to now ask us not to delete any data would violate the law that says we have to delete some data. And, to figure out how to do this would be crazy confusing, because the NSA is a giant bureaucratic machine of spying, and you can’t just throw a rock into it like that. Or something.

After the hearing, the judge sided with the NSA/DOJ, basically saying that the original temporary restraining order blocking the destruction of evidence (from back in March) still stands, but that the issue of whether or not it actually also covers data collected under Section 702 will be briefed at a later date, and until that time the DOJ/NSA are free to continue destroying evidence.

 

High School Principal Cancels Entire Reading Program To Stop Students From Reading Cory Doctorow’s ‘Little Brother’

Little Brother had been selected and approved as the school’s summer One School/One Book reading pick, and the school librarian Betsy Woolley had worked with Mary Kate Griffith from the English department to develop an excellent educational supplement for the students to use to launch their critical discussions in the fall. The whole project had been signed off on by the school administration and it was ready to go out to the students when the principal intervened and ordered them to change the title.

In an email conversation with Ms Griffith, the principal cited reviews that emphasized the book’s positive view of questioning authority, lauding “hacker culture”, and discussing sex and sexuality in passing. He mentioned that a parent had complained about profanity (there’s no profanity in the book, though there’s a reference to a swear word). In short, he made it clear that the book was being challenged because of its politics and its content.

Ultimately, the entire schoolwide One Book/One School program was cancelled.

I would recommend that everyone go ahead and read that book. It’s quite excellent at describing the dangers of creating a unchecked surveillance-based society.

Link (Techdirt)

Emergency Hearing Today at 2 p.m. PT in NSA Spying Case

This post is related to the post DOJ Admits It’s Still Destroying Evidence In NSA Case; Judge Orders Them (Again) To Stop; DOJ Flips Out

Yesterday afternoon, EFF filed an emergency motion with U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White, explaining that communications with government lawyers over the last week had revealed that the government has continued to destroy evidence relating to the mass interception of Internet communications it is conducting under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. The judge responded less than two hours later, reiterating that his TRO was still in place and continues to prohibit the destruction of evidence collected under Section 702. Late Thursday evening, the government filed papers with the court, claiming that compliance with the preservation order that has been in effect since March “would cause severe operational consequences” for the NSA, “including the possible suspension of the Section 702” program.

“This TRO has been in place since March. Yet we are only hearing these excuses now,” said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. “Once again, the government has secretly and unilaterally reinterpreted its obligations about the evidence preservation orders, and determined that it need not comply with a federal court order, and now is asking for a blessing from the court after the fact. We are pleased that Judge White has called this emergency hearing to get to the bottom of this.”

Link (EFF)

Tom Cruise’s career is ruined because the internet

No, not really, but it is what Amy Nicholson claims. After reading the Techdirt article, and the comments, it was found that she’s probably just trying to drum up interest for her book, which sounds like a full on advert for Tom Cruise. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was at least in part financed by the church cult of scientology itself.

You can probably picture it in your head: Tom Cruise, dressed in head-to-toe black, looming over a cowering Oprah as he jumps up and down on the buttermilk-colored couch like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Cruise bouncing on that couch is one of the touchstones of the last decade, the punchline every time someone writes about his career. There’s just one catch: It never happened.

This is what she claims didn’t happen:

Link (Techdirt)

Not really relevant, but still funny, imho:

Student Sponsored College

This guy wants $100 (uh… why go on Kickstarter if you’re asking for pocket money?) to create a (plan for?) a student driven college.

All without being accredited, or having any quality control what so ever.

I’m not saying the current US model isn’t outrageous, but I don’t see this to be a solution.

Also, this guy needs to do something about his wall-of-text.

Link (Kickstarter)