Deniz Arsan! 05.04.

2013

How to Pass the Turing Test by Cheating

by Jason L. Hutchens
December 11, 1997
Turing Test
Three participants:
Interrogator: Communicates with two subjects, knows that one is a human being and the
other is a computer program. His task is to guess which is which.
Computer Program: Tries to trick the interrogator into making the wrong identification.
Human Being: Assists the interrogator to make the correct identification.

The communication among the participants is realized through terminals at which each
participant types his/her questions/responses.

Loebner Contest
A $100,000 contest which is a derivation of the Turing Test.
First one had 6 computer programs, 4 human beings as subjects and 10 judges.
Original Turing Test involves a binary decision; here all subjects are ranked with respect
to their resemblance of a human being.
A computer program wins the contest if it has a median score that is higher than an
actual human being.
First contest was restricted in subject, this allowed a higher success rate for a computer
program.
One person was thought to be a computer program due to his intensive knowledge of
Shakespeare.
Later, the subject was unrestricted, thus making it harder for computer programs to
succeed.

Early Examples
ELIZA: Simulates a Rogerian psychotherapist. Tries to draw the patient out by reflecting
the patients statements back to him.
PARRY: Inspired by ELIZA, imitates a paranoid patient.
SHRDLU: A robot that can interact with a simple world that consists of blocks. Knows
about its environment.

Recent Examples
PC Therapist: At first glance, an ELIZA derivative, but further analysis show that it is
more than that.
TIPS: Provides information on a particular topic; more than a database as it
communicates using natural language. Has a built-in personality. Won the 1994 contest.
FRED: Functional Response Emulation Device. Able to learn during the course of a
conversation. Works by trying to match the users statements with the things that it had
seen in the past.
Deniz Arsan! 05.04.2013

How To Fool the Judges

Important Points About the Loebner Contest:
The conversations do not progress similar to a normal conversation as the judges try to
identify computer programs and talk accordingly.
Judges were generally reluctant to talk about the topics that were introduced by the
computer programs
Judges were not tolerant of the computer program saying I dont know
Having a personality is not considered as a sign of intelligence.

Design:
1. Sentence will be checked for keywords and the database will be searched for replies. If
a suitable reply that has not been used before is found, it will be displayed.
2. If there is no match in the database, the program will try to detect whether the sentence
is a trick sentence. If so, a witty response will be generated.
3. A module will be called to generate a new sentence using at least two keywords that
were present in the original sentence.
4. If this too fails, the sentence will be ignored and a it will be reflected back using many
different templates.
5. If the program is able to give a reply, it will introduce a brand new topic itself.
6. If the user does not type any response, a humorous response will be given.
7. If nothing works, the user will be accused of being ungrammatical.
8. If this also fails, as witty responses can all be used before, again a module will be
called to talk gibberish.

Flaws of the Loebner Contest

The domain of discourse should not be restricted.
Each judge only has a limited time to converse with each subject.
Judges see messages as they are typed.
The rules were recently changed to require a computer program to cope with audio/
visual input.