The Turing test, created and developed by Alan Turing during the ’50s, is the most famous test related to Artificial Intelligence capabilities. Its aim is to test the machine’s ability to express intelligent behavior indistinguishable from the one of a human. The test, as proposed by Alan Turing, can be synthesized as follows:
- Participants
- Actor A: A human evaluator
- Actor B: Another human
- Actor C: The machine you want to test
- Setting
- The participants are separated
- The conversation has to take place on text-only channels, like screen and keyboard
- The evaluator knows in advance that either (B) or (C) is a machine, but he does not know which one
- The test
- The evaluator (A) can have a conversation with (B) or (C)
- The evaluator has to reliably tell the machine from the human. If he can’t, the machine has passed the test!
Sounds simple, right?
The Turing Test was created to see if a computer or machine could pass itself off as a human. It was created by Alan Turing, a computer pioneer who was way a. Turing Test in AI In 1950, Alan Turing introduced a test to check whether a machine can think like a human or not, this test is known as the Turing Test. In this test, Turing proposed that the computer can be said to be an intelligent if it can mimic human response under specific conditions. Michael myers (escape from forest) demo mac os.
Since its inception, the Turing test has been highly influential. It is the most famous concept in the philosophy of artificial intelligence. You can find out more on Wikipedia.
Running a Turing test with Slack
Given that one of the prerequisites of the test is for it to happen through a text interface, Slack would be great to run it. So say you would like to run a Turing test on Slack: How would you do it? I came up with the following procedure to test it out. Please let me know what you think in the comments!
Don’t feel like reading? Check out the video below! Otherwise, keep scrolling
Note: The steps that follow assume that you already have a software to be tested. It does not need to be a Slack bot per se. If you are not sure on how to hook up your software with a Slack bot, check out this dedicated tutorial.
![Turing Turing](https://www.moregameslike.com/wp-content/previews/the-turing-test-47165-1.jpg)
1. Set up the Slack workspace
You can create a Slack workspace or use one you already own. I suggest creating a new one with the name of the software you would like to test + the “Turing-test” postfix. It will make it easier to recruit human evaluators. So for example in my case, the Slackworkspace would be:
societybot-turing-test.slack.com
You can create a new Slack workspace from the Slack homepage here.
Once you have your workspace, it’s time to set it up. I like to have a room for evaluators to wait and chat with each other, and a secret one that is used by the evaluator during the test itself. The objective is to gather the evaluators ahead of time, and not have them bored out in an empty channel. At the same time, you want your evaluator not to be disturbed during the actual test. To achieve that:
- Create a new channel called “Waiting room”
- Delete the “random” channel
- Create a new private channel called “Testing”
- Create a new private channel called “Scientists”
Ok, now you just need to adjust your Workspace Settings so that users join the waiting room by default. Click on the name of your channel > Administration > Workspace settings. From this view, expand the default channels and select “Waiting room”:
2. Set up your human component
Since Slack clearly shows, on the left-hand side, if a user is a person or a bot, we will need to create a ‘fake bot’ that will actually be controlled by a human. In order to do that, we will use Zapier. Zapier allows you to visually connect API with one another. If you don’t have an account, create one it’s free. What we want to do is set Zapier up so that everything we say in the ‘scientists’ channel will be posted in the ‘testing’ channel as if a bot was saying that. At the same time, we want everything that is being said in the ‘testing’ channel to be posted in the ‘scientists’ channel. To do that we are going to create two Zaps.
Turing's Test Mac Os Download
To create the first Zap, select Slack as a trigger. Then select your Slack workspace. Zapier will ask you to authorize with Slack if you have not done it already. You can then choose the type of trigger you prefer. Look for the option ‘Posted message on a private channel’ and select it:
Turing's Test Mac Os X
Then select ‘Scientists’ as a channel. Zapier will require you to test this step. To test it, write anything in the Scientists channel, any phrase.
You can complete the trigger. Now you can add another step to your Zap. Select ‘Slack’ again, and select again your workspace. Now choose “Send private channel message”. Select the ‘testing’ channel from the list. The message text should reflect the first step, so click on the icon on the top right corner, then select the field ‘text’ from the drop-down menu:
As you can see in the screenshot, I’ve also changed the name of the bot to “Bot A”, and written :robot_face: as bot icon. This is important as you need to hide the fact that there is actually no “Bot A” to the evaluator. Now Zapier will ask you to test this step. You should get to a situation like this:
The second Zap is the same but in reverse. So you want to select ‘tests’ as channel trigger, and ‘scientists’ as the step. It does not really matter how your bot will look, as only ‘scientists’ will take a look at this channel, not your testers.
3 Connect your software to Slack
Connecting an existing software to Slack is kind of simple. Generally speaking, Slack offers a bunch of options, from webhooks to the creation of a stand-alone chatbot user. There are a lot of tutorials out there about this topic, including one I’ve written that involves bot framework and Botsociety. Another option is to set up another Zap, put ‘Webhook’ as a trigger and ‘Slack’ as step. Then have your software call the Zapier webhook to send messages. In any case, feel free to connect your software as you prefer. It works either way.
Once you have connected your bot, you can invite him or remove him from the testing channel as you wish.
4 Invite the evaluators
![Turing Turing](https://slidetodoc.com/presentation_image_h/e5d8eb852f15e9bdcaa9cbce7fd9e64c/image-14.jpg)
This is the fun part. You can invite more people on your Slack workspace by clicking on the “+ Invite people” button on the bottom of the left-hand side panel. Once they are in the ‘Waiting room’, you can start the test.
5 Have fun
Invite one user at a time in the #testing room. Then invite either your bot or start talking in the ‘scientists’ channel. Have the two talk a bit. Then either kick your bot out or intervene in the testing room yourself and announce that the other ‘bot’ is joining. Once the two have finished talking, ‘announce’ again that the test is finished. Ask your evaluator to choose: Which one was the bot, and which was the human?
Is of course almost impossible, given the current technology, to pass a Turing test. Nonetheless, running them has been a meaningful, funny way of exploring the current state of the art.