EugeneAlan Turing

This past Sunday, a computer program got its five minutes (or three days) of fame when it reportedly became the first computer to pass the Turing Test.

Alan Turing created the test in 1950, claiming that a computer that could fool 30% of people into thinking that it was a human would mean that it could exhibit intelligent behavior on par with human beings.

On Sunday, a program named Eugene Goostman convinced 33% of judges that it was a 13-year-old boy from Odessa, Ukraine. Thus passing the Turing Test and spurring lots of media attention. But that attention soon turned to skepticism as it was revealed that other computers had already passed the test with higher scores.

We decided to see what the fuss was all about and have a little chat with Eugene ourselves. The experience was quite odd. Here's a transcription of our conversation.

Business Insider: Hi Eugene, What's up?

Eugene Goostman: I am fine, thanks, and you?

BI: I'm good. You doing anything fun today?

EG: Since early this morning I've been involved in this funny contest. I also plan to visit some interesting places in Atlanta.

BI: Why Atlanta? What's there?

EG: East Coast is a good place, but I heard about sharks and typhoons that terrify people there.

BI: So... you're going to Atlanta?

EG: If you sure that you're not eatable for sharks, I think the Eastern Coast is a very nice place for living and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean:-)

BI: Do Sharks prefer one type of human over another?

EG: Maybe. I think *you* know the answer. I know you are supposed to trick me.

BI: Why would I want to trick you?

EG: Aha! Now I know what you want! If I'm not mistake - you still didn't tell me where you live. OR it's a secret?:-)

BI: Huh? You tell me where you live first.

EG: I live in a big Ukrainian city called Odessa. It is on the Black Sea shore.

BI: So Atlanta is a far trip for you, no?


BI: And we've come full circle. Are you a human?

EG: No. Beep-beep. I am not a ma-chine. Blink-blink. I am hu-man. Click! Hu-man. Click! Hu... Damn.

And people actually believed this computer was a human?

Chatting with Eugene was confusing, and even a bit annoying. A simple question like "Why are you going to Atlanta?" was answered with a totally irrelevant statement. And he even used the same response when I brought up Atlanta again.

It honestly felt like Eugene picked out one word from each of my questions and just ran with it. I have a hard time believing he was able to fool that many people into thinking he was actually human.