What do you think?
Rate this book
Turing's Imitation Game: Conversations with the Unknown
Can you tell the difference between talking to a human and talking to a machine? Or, is it possible to create a machine which is able to converse like a human? In fact, what is it that even makes us human? Turing's Imitation Game, commonly known as the Turing Test, is fundamental to the science of artificial intelligence. Involving an interrogator conversing with hidden identities, both human and machine, the test strikes at the heart of any questions about the capacity of machines to behave as humans. While this subject area has shifted dramatically in the last few years, this book offers an up-to-date assessment of Turing's Imitation Game, its history, context and implications, all illustrated with practical Turing tests. The contemporary relevance of this topic and the strong emphasis on example transcripts makes this book an ideal companion for undergraduate courses in artificial intelligence, engineering or computer science.
- GenresNonfiction
258 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 22, 2016
4 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 17, 2017
[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley.]
That was an informative, albeit also controversial, read about Turing’s ‘Imitation Game’, focused on the game itself rather than on the man (who I like reading about in general, but here I was definitely more interested in his famous ‘test’, since I keep hearing about it, but never in much detail). It sheds light on Turing’s aim when devising the test, as well as on what he predicted, and that may or may not happen sooner than expected.
Several sections in the book are devoted to examples of studies and events during which the test took place, pitching human judges against both machines and other human beings, without the former knowing what or who the latter was. Actual, textual examples allow the reader to try and make their own judgment—and determining where the machines are is not so easy as it seems. I was accurate in my guesses except but once, I think, however I can see where judges were ‘fooled’, and why. At other times, I was surprised at the outcome, for instance quite a few human participants made ‘boring’ answers to conversations, which in turn prompted judges to believe they were talking to a machine—and conversely, some AIs were clearly programmed with a variety of lively potential responses. Eugene Goostman, especially, with its persona of a 13-year old Ukrainian boy whose English is only second language, has good potential (in that you can tell some of its/his answers are stilted, but not more than if it/he was an actual learner of ESOL).
The test as a whole posits several interesting questions and conundrums. Namely, the fact that it’s based on language, and that one may wonder whether being able to converse means one is gifted with ‘thought’. Another one is whether the test as it exists can really be used as a marker: aren’t the various chatbots/AIs out there simply well-programmed, but in no way indicative of whether they’ll be able to go further than that?
Also, I’m not sure I can agree with the 2014 ‘the Turing test has been passed’ result, as it seems to me the percentage is too low to warrant such a qualifier (if 90% of judges were fooled in believing they were conversing with a human, now that’d be something else... or am I aiming too high?), and it’s too early anyway for the current AIs to have been developed far enough (as fascinating as some of their conversations were, they still looked much more like complex chatbots than anything else—at least, to me).
Conclusion: 3.5 stars. I did learn quite a few things no matter what.
That was an informative, albeit also controversial, read about Turing’s ‘Imitation Game’, focused on the game itself rather than on the man (who I like reading about in general, but here I was definitely more interested in his famous ‘test’, since I keep hearing about it, but never in much detail). It sheds light on Turing’s aim when devising the test, as well as on what he predicted, and that may or may not happen sooner than expected.
Several sections in the book are devoted to examples of studies and events during which the test took place, pitching human judges against both machines and other human beings, without the former knowing what or who the latter was. Actual, textual examples allow the reader to try and make their own judgment—and determining where the machines are is not so easy as it seems. I was accurate in my guesses except but once, I think, however I can see where judges were ‘fooled’, and why. At other times, I was surprised at the outcome, for instance quite a few human participants made ‘boring’ answers to conversations, which in turn prompted judges to believe they were talking to a machine—and conversely, some AIs were clearly programmed with a variety of lively potential responses. Eugene Goostman, especially, with its persona of a 13-year old Ukrainian boy whose English is only second language, has good potential (in that you can tell some of its/his answers are stilted, but not more than if it/he was an actual learner of ESOL).
The test as a whole posits several interesting questions and conundrums. Namely, the fact that it’s based on language, and that one may wonder whether being able to converse means one is gifted with ‘thought’. Another one is whether the test as it exists can really be used as a marker: aren’t the various chatbots/AIs out there simply well-programmed, but in no way indicative of whether they’ll be able to go further than that?
Also, I’m not sure I can agree with the 2014 ‘the Turing test has been passed’ result, as it seems to me the percentage is too low to warrant such a qualifier (if 90% of judges were fooled in believing they were conversing with a human, now that’d be something else... or am I aiming too high?), and it’s too early anyway for the current AIs to have been developed far enough (as fascinating as some of their conversations were, they still looked much more like complex chatbots than anything else—at least, to me).
Conclusion: 3.5 stars. I did learn quite a few things no matter what.
May 4, 2017
**This book was reviewed for the San Francisco and Seattle Book Reviews**
Rather than being a book about Turing the man, Warwick and Shah focus specifically on Turing's famous Imitation Game, a tool for judging artificial intelligence, or rather, can a given machine 'think’? This game asks the question 'can a hidden machine fool a human into thinking they were having a conversation with another human?’
Turing’s Imitation Game is divided into several sections. The first looks at Turing the man, but it is a brief overview only interested in the parts of his life relevant to the invention of the Game. Beyond that, Part One is mostly an overview of history, with sections on Turing's ideas in regards to thinking machines, a brief history of AI, controversy over the Imitation Game, a history of 'conversation systems’, and questions raised by early Turing tests. Part Two focuses on recent practical tests, from 2008-2014, with interviews with machine developers, and a section on what the future may hold for AI.
I'm not necessarily interested in robotics or cybernetics. I'm a philosopher interested in questions of sentience. The endeavour to create 'artificial’ intelligence that can grow, learn, and adapt on its own, that can fool humans, does beg the question 'at what point does sentience emerge?’ Turing's Imitation Game is one step in the process, and so it fascinates me. It is by no means a test for human-like intelligence in machines. No, that is a step and a question much further down the road. The question Turing asked was 'can machines think?' It's interesting that the criteria used is the ability to communicate, which means, to pass the Turing test, a machine needs to be able to process and *understand* language well enough to fool a human.
Reading the transcripts from some of the Turing tests is quite amusing. Some are just bizarre. Some come across like toddlers, learning to share conversation and take turns speaking, but each participant (machine and human) is having a different. The 2014 tests recorded a success. The Turing test had been passed. This set of tests had been carried out by the authors, using five different virtual 'bots, several of which had been part of previous rounds of testing and improved upon. The authors suggest that the test parameters be expanded to twenty-five minutes now that the five minute parameter has been breached. Their suggestion of a future with 'Terminator’ tests, where the machines will have evolved to human appearance as well reminded me more of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ‘Measure of a Man’, where Data, the Enterprise's android officer is recalled for study, and the Enterprise crew calls for a tribunal to determine his sentience.
This book at times slowed me down with the technical language, but overall it was a very enlightening read.
📚📚📚📚 Recommended for those interested in Turing, his Imitation Game, and the future of AI
Rather than being a book about Turing the man, Warwick and Shah focus specifically on Turing's famous Imitation Game, a tool for judging artificial intelligence, or rather, can a given machine 'think’? This game asks the question 'can a hidden machine fool a human into thinking they were having a conversation with another human?’
Turing’s Imitation Game is divided into several sections. The first looks at Turing the man, but it is a brief overview only interested in the parts of his life relevant to the invention of the Game. Beyond that, Part One is mostly an overview of history, with sections on Turing's ideas in regards to thinking machines, a brief history of AI, controversy over the Imitation Game, a history of 'conversation systems’, and questions raised by early Turing tests. Part Two focuses on recent practical tests, from 2008-2014, with interviews with machine developers, and a section on what the future may hold for AI.
I'm not necessarily interested in robotics or cybernetics. I'm a philosopher interested in questions of sentience. The endeavour to create 'artificial’ intelligence that can grow, learn, and adapt on its own, that can fool humans, does beg the question 'at what point does sentience emerge?’ Turing's Imitation Game is one step in the process, and so it fascinates me. It is by no means a test for human-like intelligence in machines. No, that is a step and a question much further down the road. The question Turing asked was 'can machines think?' It's interesting that the criteria used is the ability to communicate, which means, to pass the Turing test, a machine needs to be able to process and *understand* language well enough to fool a human.
Reading the transcripts from some of the Turing tests is quite amusing. Some are just bizarre. Some come across like toddlers, learning to share conversation and take turns speaking, but each participant (machine and human) is having a different. The 2014 tests recorded a success. The Turing test had been passed. This set of tests had been carried out by the authors, using five different virtual 'bots, several of which had been part of previous rounds of testing and improved upon. The authors suggest that the test parameters be expanded to twenty-five minutes now that the five minute parameter has been breached. Their suggestion of a future with 'Terminator’ tests, where the machines will have evolved to human appearance as well reminded me more of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ‘Measure of a Man’, where Data, the Enterprise's android officer is recalled for study, and the Enterprise crew calls for a tribunal to determine his sentience.
This book at times slowed me down with the technical language, but overall it was a very enlightening read.
📚📚📚📚 Recommended for those interested in Turing, his Imitation Game, and the future of AI
September 4, 2018
I first got to know about the Alan Turing test whilst a student of computing science many years ago. However I never really fully understood exactly what Turing was trying to achieve until I read the Imitation Game. The Game basically consists of an interrogator communicating with hidden human and machine personalities. The book explains in detail Turing’s aim in devising the test and his predictions surrounding the results. These have subsequently become fundamental to the science of artificial intelligence by providing an insight into how humans communicate.
Following a comprehensive introduction to the topic with short examples that allow readers to initially assess their own ‘man or machine’ judgment, the book moves on to provide a limited background to Turing the man. It mentions his work at Bletchley Park briefly and his involvement and contribution to the Ratio Club formed in 1949 to promote thinking about information processing in brains and machines.
The book then splits into two parts. The first part dealing with Turing’s ideas and writings on human computers and the imitation game concept. He considered the possibility of machines showing intelligent behaviour alongside humans’ attitude to machines, referring to them as exhibiting purely mechanical behaviour. What is it that makes us human?
Part two moves to present day experimental testing that has taken place at Reading University and Bletchley Park amongst others. Large sections of this part of the book are given over to examples of actual studies and events where testing has taken place. Judges competing against machines and humans where the judges are not aware of what or who they are.
The inclusion of example texts makes this book ideal source material for undergraduate courses in artificial intelligence, engineering or computer science. I award the book 8 out of 10 for its approach, coverage of the material and ease of reading.
Review by Jim McGhie CEng MBCS CITP
Originally published: https://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc...
Following a comprehensive introduction to the topic with short examples that allow readers to initially assess their own ‘man or machine’ judgment, the book moves on to provide a limited background to Turing the man. It mentions his work at Bletchley Park briefly and his involvement and contribution to the Ratio Club formed in 1949 to promote thinking about information processing in brains and machines.
The book then splits into two parts. The first part dealing with Turing’s ideas and writings on human computers and the imitation game concept. He considered the possibility of machines showing intelligent behaviour alongside humans’ attitude to machines, referring to them as exhibiting purely mechanical behaviour. What is it that makes us human?
Part two moves to present day experimental testing that has taken place at Reading University and Bletchley Park amongst others. Large sections of this part of the book are given over to examples of actual studies and events where testing has taken place. Judges competing against machines and humans where the judges are not aware of what or who they are.
The inclusion of example texts makes this book ideal source material for undergraduate courses in artificial intelligence, engineering or computer science. I award the book 8 out of 10 for its approach, coverage of the material and ease of reading.
Review by Jim McGhie CEng MBCS CITP
Originally published: https://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc...
October 17, 2021
Academic book on the experiments on the Imitation game proposed by Turing. Basically, a long academic paper, with all that is implied: introduction, methodology, results, interpretation and discussions.
February 10, 2017
As part of the Industry 4.0 research two years ago, we studied a little bit about Artificial Intelligence. And that, of course, includes the Turing Test, a very interesting experiment where a machine tries to convince a judge that it's human via conversation. So when I saw this book, I jumped at the chance to read it and learn more.
Turing's Imitation Game starts with an introduction of Turing the man. That short introduction is actually really readable. And then it's Part 1, which is about AI and the Turing Test. The first few chapters are pretty easy, but once it gets into the controversies, the book starts to turn technical and theories are very quickly mentioned rather than carefully explained (although it's still possible to follow along). Part 3 is about the experiments that the writers did - the 2008, 2012 and 2014 tests, with an interview of several elite machine developers. This was the driest section of them all, though I found the interviews to be interesting.
And luckily for me, I did learn a lot from the book. One thing I thought was worth remembering is that:
So this isn't really about artificial intelligence, but more of whether machines can imitate human behaviour. So this does lead to all sorts of interesting questions, such as "when machines can imitate humans perfectly, are they conscious?" Or "what is human consciousness anyway?" And "didn't that movie about the guy falling in love with the computer voice talk about this?" (Oh wait, the last one is just me?)
If you're interesting in how machines work and if we'll ever be replaced or ruled by robots, you might want to read this. Turing's imitation game provides a nice starting point for one to consider what the nature of thinking and consciousness involves, and this book gives a realistic picture of how close computers are to fooling humans (as of 2014, at the very least).
Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a fee and honest review.
This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile
Turing's Imitation Game starts with an introduction of Turing the man. That short introduction is actually really readable. And then it's Part 1, which is about AI and the Turing Test. The first few chapters are pretty easy, but once it gets into the controversies, the book starts to turn technical and theories are very quickly mentioned rather than carefully explained (although it's still possible to follow along). Part 3 is about the experiments that the writers did - the 2008, 2012 and 2014 tests, with an interview of several elite machine developers. This was the driest section of them all, though I found the interviews to be interesting.
And luckily for me, I did learn a lot from the book. One thing I thought was worth remembering is that:
A key feature of the Turing imitation game is not whether a machine gives a correct or incorrect response or indeed a truthful or untruthful one, but rather if it gives the sort of response that a human might give, so that an interrogator cannot tell the difference.
So this isn't really about artificial intelligence, but more of whether machines can imitate human behaviour. So this does lead to all sorts of interesting questions, such as "when machines can imitate humans perfectly, are they conscious?" Or "what is human consciousness anyway?" And "didn't that movie about the guy falling in love with the computer voice talk about this?" (Oh wait, the last one is just me?)
If you're interesting in how machines work and if we'll ever be replaced or ruled by robots, you might want to read this. Turing's imitation game provides a nice starting point for one to consider what the nature of thinking and consciousness involves, and this book gives a realistic picture of how close computers are to fooling humans (as of 2014, at the very least).
Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a fee and honest review.
This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews