Robotics and Turing Test
Alan Turing was a British mathematician who in the 1950’s developed a test, the turing test, to prove if a machine was able to think. Essentially this is the test for Artificial Intelligence. Recently The turing test has been carried out as part of the Loebner Prize competition which is an annual competition for the most human-like machines.
Artificial Intelligence raise a huge number of issues and has been the topic of popular science-fiction for many years. We do face a future that will be shaped by the development of Artificial Intelligence. Whether its turns out to be a Terminator or March of Machines like scenario is still up in the air.
The test has recently been run at Reading University by Prof Kevin Warwick (http://www.kevinwarwick.com/) and team of scientists. Kevin Warwick is a very interesting person in his on right, he is a “Cyborg”. Here is a quote from his website. Source: http://www.kevinwarwick.com
“Kevin has carried out a series of pioneering experiments involving the neuro-surgical implantation of a device into the median nerves of his left arm in order to link his nervous system directly to a computer”
The articles are worth reading and make a great opening for discussion and debate. The Two articles are:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/berkshire/7666246.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/10/12/eacomputer112.xml
Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/
