Computers now capable of ill-informed opinions
A COMPUTER programme has mimicked a human conversation by ignoring what the other person said and spouting hackneyed, tabloid nonsense. The program, created by software engineers at Cambridge University, passed the âTuring testâ by showing no social skills and rambling on about its own tedious preoccupations. Programmer Tom Logan said: âI asked how it was today, and it just said âdunno, alright I supposeâ then delivered a detailed and wholly inaccurate lecture about the right way to kill a chicken. âI then asked it what it understood by the concept of consciousness and it talked for 15 minutes about its problems at work, even though I was obviously bored and didnât know any of the people involved.â