The Turing Test.

[Peter Connelly]

The Turing Test.

Yes, they labelled him this and that,
And forced him to consider himself
As not one of them,
As standing apart.

He’d done more than his bit,
But still aspersion followed him
Around like a stray dog.

Did they find the debt of gratitude
Too much to bear?
Did they feel the burden so much,
Of their reliance on one of them
That they were happier
Persuading him, by diverse and
Cowardly tactics,
That his otherness was only
Worthy of death?

And so, as if to describe
In an enduring image
The salient and testing truth
That it is not so much the labels that
Others’ give to you,
But the labels they force you
To give yourself that bode ill,
He died in bed,
That poignant apple
Left nibbled beside
The alarm clock he would
Never set again.

[shygirl78]

Wow Peter, that is brilliant.

I just had a read of what the Turing test is, fascinating stuff!

[khartoumteddy]

hi peter

what was the source of the original material
as i understood it originally the turing test
was a method of comparing a.i.

teddy

superb concept by the way

[NickB]

.
The Turing Test is a test to determine if an entity is human. It is supposed to be able to distinguish between an AI (Articifial Intelligence) programme or entity and a real human being. The question you are asked when you sign up on this forum is an example - although it is only designed to foil low-level 'bot' programmes it can be considered as a type of Turing test.

I've been interested in AI for many years, and thought this was a very evocative piece by Peter. My interpretation is of a humanoid / robot suicide with the apple representing knowledge in the form of self-awareness, the true test of intelligence. Maybe this is only a metaphor though; the sense of an inability to be or feel truly human may also be felt by those who are definitley biologically and historically human.

Isaac Asimov wrote his superb 'I Robot' stories and novels back in the late fifties and sixties, and they were what I cut my science fiction teeth on. More recently Spielberg directed the very successful movie AI about a robot boy programmed to love, based on a Brian Aldiss story. The 2004 film 'I Robot' starring Will Smith was loosely based on Asimov's robot stories and his famous three laws of robotics.

[Peter Connelly]

Yes, indeed Admin. I was driving at the irony between Alan Turing’s demise through the cultural prejudice over homosexuality, the treatment in A.I. of those ‘others’ whose deaths were, in the film, treated as carnival entertainment, and the Turing Test itself.

As far as some people in authority positions were concerned, Alan Turing failed their test for humanity, despite Turing’s efforts, with others at Bletchley Park, to combat probably the most inhuman regime this planet has known. I see that on the 10th September, the UK government issued an apology to Turing, after many people signed an on-line petition to that end.

As Brown said in his statement, ‘we can’t put the clock back’. Thus the reference to the alarm clock in the last line. We can still use the whole sorry Turing debacle as a wake up call, though, to remind ourselves that prejudice against many people still exists today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8249792.stm

[NickB]

.
Much more there than I thought then - I didn't know much about Turing's life (and death) so thanks for that. It's certainly worth a look at the Wikipedia entry for him. I like the bit at the end:

An urban legend holds that the logo of Apple computers is a tribute to Alan Turing, with the bite mark a reference to his method of suicide

[khartoumteddy]

Certainly food for thought Peter
although I may not be so keen on apples for a while.

Will check out Wikipedia etc

TEDDY