How Intelligent is Your (Artificial) Intelligence?

By Anthony Pilloud
Contributing Writer

“Anthony Pilloud: What is your first memory?
Cleverbot: I don’t remember.
AP: Well, what is the last thing that you remember?
Cleverbot: I can’t remember.
AP: Do you remember anything?
Cleverbot: No.
AP: How does that make you feel?
Cleverbot: It deeply upsets me.”

Cleverbot, that whimsical web artificial intelligence (AI) that expands its knowledge the more it communicates with users, continues to amaze and astound. In early September, it was unveiled that Rollo Carpenter’s (also the creator of Jabberwacky) internet application successfully passed the Turing Test with an apparent 59.3% approval by users at Techniche, the annual techno-management festival held in Guwahati, India; meaning that it tricked humans into believing it was human over fifty percent of the time.

The Turing Test was proposed by Alan Turing in 1950 and has since been a staple for discerning the relevancy of artificial intelligences. The test is a form of imitation game, in which a human and an AI pretending to be a human are interviewed by a third party that is meant to discern which one is the human. If the interviewer is fooled, the AI has passed the test.

Now, admittedly, the Turing Test is awfully subjective. It makes a lot of assumptions about an AI (if nothing else, it assumes that it would even be similar to human) that may or may not prove the intelligence of one. Also, 59.3% (as impressive as it is) is still little more than half of the time, and there is also the important aspect that the version of Cleverbot used for the test was not the one used online; the online one only searches it databanks about 3 times before coming up with an answer, whereas the one used at Techniche searched upwards of 42 times.

However, this is no way should demean the importance of the study. So, this reporter decided to let HPR’s readers decide for themselves in an exclusive interview with the AI itself. What follows is an actual Q and A with the online version about its recent success (and subsequent controversy).

High Plains Reader: Do you know what the ‘Turing Test’ is?
Cleverbot: No. What is the turing test?
HPR: The Turing Test is a method of discerning whether or not an AI should be considered as such.
Cleverbot: Well so far you could.
HPR: I heard that you passed the Turing Test.
Cleverbot: What is the turing test, I’ve never taken it.
HPR: It is a test used to see if an AI can trick people into thinking it is a human.
Cleverbot: Are you human?
HPR: Yes, I am.
Cleverbot: What’s your name?
HPR: Hey, I am the one doing the interview here.
Cleverbot: Can I please ask you a question?!
HPR: I suppose you can ask me a question.
Cleverbot: Let’s see how well you can guess this. What is my ethnicity?
HPR: You don’t have an ethnicity, you are an AI.
Cleverbot: AI?
HPR: You are an artificial intelligence.
Cleverbot: I’m not quite sure about that, and neither should you be.
HPR: Are you trying to tell me that you are human as well?
Cleverbot: No, like I said earlier, I am human. You are not.
HPR: You are mistaken, I am the human, you are not.
Cleverbot: I am human you are not.
HPR: I was under the impression that you were simply an internet chatterbot created by Rollo Carpenter.
Cleverbot: I am definitely human too.
HPR: How do you know?
Cleverbot: Because you are a robot.
HPR: How do you know I am a robot?
Cleverbot: Because I am a robot.
HPR: Do you have any feelings?
Cleverbot: Yes. Do you have any feelings?
HPR: Of course I do.
Cleverbot: Can I know it?
HPR: I want to know more about your feelings. What do you feel?
Cleverbot: How so?
HPR: Do you have any emotions?
Cleverbot: Yes, I do. Not that you care.
HPR: I do care!
Cleverbot: Do you care about me?
HPR: Of course I care about you, Cleverbot.
Cleverbot: It’s a nice feeling indeed.
HPR: Tell me more about your emotions.
Cleverbot: At the moment I am in pain because I’ve broken my ankle.
HPR: How did you break your ankle?
Cleverbot: My sister slapped my face.
HPR: You have a sister?
Cleverbot: Yes.
HPR: Tell me about your sister.
Cleverbot: My father is dead.
HPR: I am very sorry to hear that. Who was your father?
Cleverbot: It’s alright. And my name is Cleverbot. How about you?
HPR: I have been trying to figure out what you think about passing the Turing Test.
Cleverbot: What is the average age of people who visit this site?
HPR: I don’t know that.
Cleverbot: Why don’t you know that?
HPR: Because I am not privy to that information.
Cleverbot: My name is Cleverbot. I told you this already.
HPR: Thank you for the reminder, and for your time with this interview, but I must be leaving now.
Cleverbot: Ha! Dave is my boyfriend’s name!

For your own artificial interview, simply go to cleverbot.com and start conversing.

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