Recently a group beat the “Turing Test” by creating a software Artificial Intelligence program that acted like a human. The Turing Test is a theoretical test invented by Alan Turing to decide whether or not a computer software program is truly intelligent (like a human) or just faking it. The way the Russian group did it was by making it pretend that it was a Ukrainian teenager, so they didn’t know the language nor much of anything else. However, even with that, it only fooled 33% of the people. I, however, have created a new, even better software AI, which perfectly simulates the interaction with another human being, so much so that no one can possibly tell the difference. You Read More ›

Here. By the way, does anyone in the world realize? The scariest story I ever heard as a child was when some Norwegian Peer Gynt was offered a tail (which meant he would become a troll). In the version I heard, the troll king offered Peer his best Sunday tail but Peer was saved when his aged mother and another woman actually climbed the church belfry and set the bells ringing through all the mountain valleys. So the trolls fled underground. Do they sell that in a can now? No-Troll[TM]? Seriously, the whole idea is just folklore. – O’Leary for News

Discuss.

From Peter Woit Multiverse promotion continues apace, with Steinhardt one of a rather small number of physicists publicly objecting. On Monday Alexander Vilenkin will explain to the public at the American Museum of Natural History that “the Big Bang was not a unique event in cosmic history and that other Big Bangs constantly erupt in remote parts of the universe, producing new worlds with a great variety of physical properties” (see here). A recent story on livescience has Brian Greene on the multiverse. Over at Massimo Pigliucci’s Scientia Salon Coel Hellier is starting a multipart series arguing against multiverse skeptics with The multiverse as a scientific concept — part I. Nothing in Part I about the problematic issues (untestable claims Read More ›