Reading Test (Focus 4)

Eugene Goostman is a thirteen-year-old boy from Odessa in Ukraine. He has got a pet guinea pig and his father is a doctor. In 2014, he passed a test that some people say had never been passed before. Is Eugene a genius? In fact, he doesn’t really exist at all.

Eugene is a chatter bot. That is, a computer programme which can listen and reply to questions. You may have one on your smartphone. You can ask it to do simple tasks like find out what the weather is like in Portugal or how many dollars there are to the euro. You can also try to have a conversation with your chatterbot, although their answers don’t always make sense. However, Eugene is more advanced than these very basic versions. He actually managed to fool some people into thinking he was human in a test thought up over 60 years ago.

What skills do chatterbots have?

Eugene Goostman is a thirteen-year-old boy from Odessa in Ukraine. He has got a pet guinea pig and his father is a doctor. In 2014, he passed a test that some people say had never been passed before. Is Eugene a genius? In fact, he doesn’t really exist at all.

Eugene is a chatter bot. That is, a computer programme which can listen and reply to questions. You may have one on your smartphone. You can ask it to do simple tasks like find out what the weather is like in Portugal or how many dollars there are to the euro. You can also try to have a conversation with your chatterbot, although their answers don’t always make sense. However, Eugene is more advanced than these very basic versions. He actually managed to fool some people into thinking he was human in a test thought up over 60 years ago.

Why can it be difficult to talk to smartphone chatterbots?

Eugene Goostman is a thirteen-year-old boy from Odessa in Ukraine. He has got a pet guinea pig and his father is a doctor. In 2014, he passed a test that some people say had never been passed before. Is Eugene a genius? In fact, he doesn’t really exist at all.

Eugene is a chatter bot. That is, a computer programme which can listen and reply to questions. You may have one on your smartphone. You can ask it to do simple tasks like find out what the weather is like in Portugal or how many dollars there are to the euro. You can also try to have a conversation with your chatterbot, although their answers don’t always make sense. However, Eugene is more advanced than these very basic versions. He actually managed to fool some people into thinking he was human in a test thought up over 60 years ago.

How is Eugene different to the programmes we have on our smartphones?

The test Eugene passed is called the Turing Test, named after the computer expert, Alan Turing, who became famous for his work on the Enigma code machine during the Second World War. This was a German machine which was brought to England in 1939 from Poland. By breaking the code, Turing was able to find out German war plans in advance. In 1950, Turing wrote a paper which predicted that, one day, robots would have the intelligence to carry out a human-like conversation. Two years later, in 1952, he finalised the rules of a test which would show whether or not this intelligence existed. The main rule was that, if any computer persuaded 30 percent of the people reading or listening to the answers that it was human, it would pass the test. Turing passed away in 1954 but the challenge lived on.

What does a computer programme need to be able to do to pass the Turing test?

The test Eugene passed is called the Turing Test, named after the computer expert, Alan Turing, who became famous for his work on the Enigma code machine during the Second World War. This was a German machine which was brought to England in 1939 from Poland. By breaking the code, Turing was able to find out German war plans in advance. In 1950, Turing wrote a paper which predicted that, one day, robots would have the intelligence to carry out a human-like conversation. Two years later, in 1952, he finalised the rules of a test which would show whether or not this intelligence existed. The main rule was that, if any computer persuaded 30 percent of the people reading or listening to the answers that it was human, it would pass the test. Turing passed away in 1954 but the challenge lived on.

After breaking the Enigma code, what did Turing believe about the robots of the future?

Interestingly, Turing based his test on a party game, called Imitation, which he enjoyed taking part in. In this game, a set of questions were given to a man and a woman. They typed their answers, not necessarily truthfully, and the other party guests had to try to guess who had written which set of answers. The theory was that there would always be some clues that would give them away. Turing died without knowing whether any robot would ever manage to pass his test but, in 2014, on the sixtieth anniversary of his death, Eugene Goostman managed to do it.

What was believed about the game Imitation?

Not everyone is impressed by Eugene’s accomplishment. Some say that Eugene wasn’t the first chatterbot to pass the test. This is technically true but the previous tests were either too short or they were judged by an audience rather than experts. These factors meant that the results weren’t conclusive. Eugene’s test involved many more questions but there were still criticisms. The main one involves Eugene’s ‘human’ profile. His designers deliberately made him a thirteen-year-old with poor English so that judges would be more likely to ignore his strange or irrelevant answers than they would if he was a native speaker adult. Finally, even if he was the first chatterbot to really pass the test, many people argue that Eugene doesn’t actually possess real intelligence. All it can do is imitate intelligence. In other words, it is unable to think or learn like a real human being.

Why do some people think Eugene’s test was not fair?

Not everyone is impressed by Eugene’s accomplishment. Some say that Eugene wasn’t the first chatterbot to pass the test. This is technically true but the previous tests were either too short or they were judged by an audience rather than experts. These factors meant that the results weren’t conclusive. Eugene’s test involved many more questions but there were still criticisms. The main one involves Eugene’s ‘human’ profile. His designers deliberately made him a thirteen-year-old with poor English so that judges would be more likely to ignore his strange or irrelevant answers than they would if he was a native speaker adult. Finally, even if he was the first chatterbot to really pass the test, many people argue that Eugene doesn’t actually possess real intelligence. All it can do is imitate intelligence. In other words, it is unable to think or learn like a real human being.

Why was Eugene’s test more reliable than previous tests passed by other chatterbots ?

Chatterbots may not be ready to take over the world yet but they can have uses. They can perform basic tasks on a smartphone while we are unable to press buttons on our phones ourselves, such as while driving. They can also be used to create believable characters in video games which can follow orders and report on what is happening. However, robots with real intelligence are still a long way off. You won’t be able to get one to do your homework for a few more years, I’m afraid!

What are the main uses for chatterbots at the moment?

Any mention of the media and people automatically think of newspapers and magazines, television and the Internet, entirely modern methods of communication. This is understandable, the 20^th century saw the introduction of communication technologies that have completely revolutionised the way we work, play, relax and interact with other people. These fast-paced, ground-breaking changes do not look likely to slow down in the near future, either.

Most people define the media as ___,like for example television or magazines.

Whilst the tools of communication we now have at our fingertips have changed, so too has the general perception of the media. We tend to look back fondly on times where journalists could be trusted not to be the perpetrators of harmful fake news stories, and TV was not full of violence and aggression. But the past in many ways is not the nostalgic place we dream about. In any form of communication there is room for misinterpretation and misunderstanding. It’s true that modern media dominates our lives, but the will to communicate is perhaps what makes us human, and people have found ways to record their thoughts, feelings and lives since the beginning of time. Here, we take a look back on some of the most important forms of media and human communication through history.

Many people dream of a past where journalists were honest and less ______ was visible on TV.

Prehistoric cave paintings are often considered to be the oldest form of human artistic expression, but every artist has a story to tell and every painting holds a message. So what is the message behind these paintings? Many of them depict hunting scenes and are often thought to represent how these early people lived. However, we now know they survived on a diet of reindeer meat, whereas the paintings show bears, wild cats and even rhinos. Rather than their reality, it could be their dreams and aspirations that are on show. Or perhaps these early people wanted to show themselves as having greater strength and bravery than they actually possessed. Either way, there is some confirmation that dissatisfaction with life may not be a modern invention at all.

Now we know that prehistoric people didn’t really hunt for _______________.

Prehistoric cave paintings are often considered to be the oldest form of human artistic expression, but every artist has a story to tell and every painting holds a message. So what is the message behind these paintings? Many of them depict hunting scenes and are often thought to represent how these early people lived. However, we now know they survived on a diet of reindeer meat, whereas the paintings show bears, wild cats and even rhinos. Rather than their reality, it could be their dreams and aspirations that are on show. Or perhaps these early people wanted to show themselves as having greater strength and bravery than they actually possessed. Either way, there is some confirmation that dissatisfaction with life may not be a modern invention at all.

Prehistoric paintings are often ______ the daily lives of the people who created them.