Computer dupes humans into thinking it's a 13-year-old Ukrainian boy
princetonai.com/bot/bot


Eugene Goostman is a perfectly normal 13-year-old boy in every way, except that he's a computer.
In a milestone for the development of artificial intelligence, the Goostman program became the first to ever pass the Turing Test, which requires that a computer convince at least 30 percent of humans it's one of them and not a soulless bunch of ones and zeroes. Computer whiz Alan Turing devised the test back in the 1950s, and it has remained a symbolic threshold for the AI community ever since.
A Russian team designed Goostman, and the program succeeded on Saturday in duping 33 percent of the judges at a contest in London. Despite the success though, the robocalypse is not yet upon us: Goostman only had to hold court for five minutes about guinea pigs, candy, and his gynecologist father, so we're still a long way from truly terrifying autonomous bots.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.
-
How generative AI is changing the way we write and speak
In The Spotlight ChatGPT and other large language model tools are quietly influencing which words we use
-
Can Nato keep Donald Trump happy?
Today's Big Question Military alliance pulls out all the stops to woo US president on his peacemaker victory lap
-
Easy Money: the Charles Ponzi Story – an 'enlightening' podcast
The Week Recommends Apple Original podcast explores the 'fascinating' tale of the man who gave the investment scam its name
-
Disney, Universal sue AI firm over 'plagiarism'
Speed Read The studios say that Midjourney copied characters from their most famous franchises
-
Amazon launches 1st Kuiper internet satellites
Speed Read The battle of billionaires continues in space
-
Test flight of orbital rocket from Europe explodes
Speed Read Isar Aerospace conducted the first test flight of the Spectrum orbital rocket, which crashed after takeoff
-
Apple pledges $500B in US spending over 4 years
Speed Read This is a win for Trump, who has pushed to move manufacturing back to the US
-
Microsoft unveils quantum computing breakthrough
Speed Read Researchers say this advance could lead to faster and more powerful computers
-
TikTok's fate uncertain as weekend deadline looms
Speed Read The popular app is set to be banned in the U.S. starting Sunday
-
Appeals court kills FCC net neutrality rule
Speed Read A U.S. appeals court blocked Biden's effort to restore net-neutrality rules
-
Judge rejects Elon Musk's $56B pay package again
Speed Read Judge Kathaleen McCormick upheld her rejection of the Tesla CEO's unprecedented compensation deal