If you could pose a question to a Turing test candidate, what would it be?

Question

How would you distinguish the man from the machine?

score 50 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 09:24

50

I'd just ask him "If you could pose a question to a turing test candidate, what would it be?".

answered Apr 01 '11 at 09:24

Carra

4,281

score 36 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 15:24

36

What is the meaning of...'); DROP TABLE Responses;

answered Apr 01 '11 at 15:24

oosterwal

1,723

score 24 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 09:24

Humans use rapport to sniff out artifice

Essentially this means that it will always take a series of questions and subsequent analysis of the answers to establish if the anonymous entity at the end of the line is a human being or not. A single question will not achieve this.

I suppose you could ask "Will you meet me in the car park in 2 minutes?" and then see what turns up.

score 22 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 15:40

You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?

score 18 · Answer 5 · 2011-06-20T05:57:44.600

"Why are manhole covers round?"

Perhaps followed up with "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

EDIT: I've come to think of that Douglas Hofstadter has done a delightful piece on this exact subject (including the highest rated answer) and found an online version at http://www.cse.unr.edu/~sushil/class/ai/papers/coffeehouse.html. Especially the scenario where he tries to disclose Nicolai in the "Post Scriptum" section is a fantastic read. I believe I read this in Metamagical Themes.

score 11 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 12:39

11

Challenge it to a game of "Global Thermonuclear War". Or perhaps a game of tic-tac-toe versus itself.

answered Apr 01 '11 at 12:39

davidhaskins

2,168

score 8 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 10:31

8

Anything ironic. So far machines are totally incapable of interpreting jokes and irony. Although some people are too, so you may get some false negatives ;-)

answered Apr 01 '11 at 10:31

vartec

20,846

score 8 · Answer 8 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 14:02

8

I'd see if it could handle lots of slang, incorrect grammar and implicit meaning as efficiently as a human:

Dude, is you some kinda fancy-schmancy circuit board or does you have DNA?

answered Apr 01 '11 at 14:02

dsimcha

17,284

score 8 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 15:17

"Will your answer to this question be negative?"

Note: the original Turing test proposal was for the computer to pretend to be a woman, the interviewer to be a man, and the test limited to five minutes. If the man was unable to determine if the computer was a woman or not in five minutes, we would have to conclude that the computer was intelligent, "because the converse is not polite".

score 6 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 08:51

6

"Are you Watson?" :-p

Jokes aside, I think it is impossible to determine man from machine with a single question, especially without any context info.

answered Apr 01 '11 at 08:51

Péter Török

46,547

score 6 · Answer 11 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 09:43

6

How much wood, would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck would chuck wood?

answered Apr 01 '11 at 09:43

score 5 · Answer 12 · edited Apr 08 '11 at 09:35

5

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

edited Apr 08 '11 at 09:35

TZHX

5,072

answered Apr 04 '11 at 14:41

Zachary K

10,413

score 4 · Answer 13 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 10:37

4

If you were to answer dishonestly, how would you answer this question?

answered Apr 01 '11 at 10:37

dan_waterworth

7,327

score 4 · Answer 14 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 12:23

4

So I see that Fred A. Niedle was fired for woobling the wotsits. What do you think about the whole affair?

I'd expect an AI to try to Eliza it back to me somehow, and a human to respond with confusion or humour.

answered Apr 01 '11 at 12:23

Peter Taylor

4,043

score 3 · Answer 15 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 12:44

3

Ask a logical question which requires infinite recursion for evaluation and hope the programmers weren't smart enough to account for that kind of question.

answered Apr 01 '11 at 12:44

Falcon

19,388

score 3 · Answer 16 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 17:21

3

Well most likely computer has problem answering an alternative to problem :

Which came first: the chicken or the egg?

answered Apr 01 '11 at 17:21

Margus

213

score 3 · Answer 17 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 18:13

3

What would an M look like if you were standing on your head?

answered Apr 01 '11 at 18:13

mouviciel · Answer 18 · 2011-04-01T13:41:39.010

2

How are you feeling today? and go on with empathic conversation.

edited Apr 01 '11 at 13:41

answered Apr 01 '11 at 12:13

mouviciel

15,491

score 2 · Answer 19 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 13:20

2

"If humans said nothing to prove that they're human, what would you say?"

answered Apr 01 '11 at 13:20

Homde

11,114

score 2 · Answer 20 · answered Apr 01 '11 at 20:46

2

I'd ask something I've always wondered:

"Mary Ann or Ginger?"

answered Apr 01 '11 at 20:46

oosterwal

1,723

score 2 · Answer 21 · answered Apr 02 '11 at 02:32

"When was the last time you prevaricated?"

Semantically it's a sensible question, and a computer would probably try and answer it, but a human being would just say - "Awee... c'mon.. how the hell would I know?"

Anything with that pattern, ie. linguistically, semantically, and culturally a sensible question, but something which no real person would ask, or answer. (This can be done, without going into deeply personal areas - in fact, the computer might be programmed to handle those with "that's private").

score 2 · Answer 22 · answered Apr 04 '11 at 14:21

I would ask anything where there isn't a clear cut answer and which usually involves strong or varied opinions and/or emotions from human participants. For example:

What do do you think of the current situation in Libya?
What are your thoughts on the recent disaster in Japan?
How do you think we should resolve the humanitarian crisis in the Ivory Coast?
Why do you think Coldplay became so popular?
What do you think about Charlie Sheen?
What new technologies should we foresee in the next twenty years?

score 2 · Answer 23 · answered Apr 04 '11 at 17:30

2

"Sorry I'm late. Got held up at my mother's funeral."

Would any intelligent being other than a human respond to that as a human would? I think not.

answered Apr 04 '11 at 17:30

Tom Zych

181

score 1 · Answer 24 · answered Apr 02 '11 at 02:40

1

Why might a guy say to another guy "Oh, be a fine girl kiss me"?

answered Apr 02 '11 at 02:40

Loren Pechtel

3,421

score 1 · Answer 25 · answered Apr 04 '11 at 17:46

1

Whats is your date of birth :) And mother's name too :):):)

answered Apr 04 '11 at 17:46

Ant's

732

score 1 · Answer 26 · answered Apr 04 '11 at 19:02

1

First: "Are you a programmer?"

If no, not a program.

If yes:

"Do you prefer emacs or vi?"

If that doesn't start a flamewar, it's a machine :)

answered Apr 04 '11 at 19:02

Tom Zych

181

If you could pose a question to a Turing test candidate, what would it be?

26 Answers26