Could Donald Trump Pass the Turing Test?
And am I the only one who wonders?
From Wikipedia:
The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human.
When the idea of artificial intelligence was new and humanoid robots were a popular trope in science fiction, people started speculating about whether a computer could ever pass as human. Isaac Asimov developed this concept in several of the stories in his classic collection I, Robot.
Since that time, numerous programs have been written by which computers do “converse” with humans, even to the point of providing text-based mental health counseling. In simple applications, programmers write scripts that anticipate possible questions or statements from the human participant and provide human-sounding responses to each. In more advanced forms, the programs use linguistic analysis to extract the meaning from the human input, then generate logical replies.
Some of those programs are quite sophisticated, but few of them would fool a person of average intelligence for long.
Alan Turing, a British mathematician and early pioneer of computer science, proposed a test to evaluate the ability of such a program to simulate human thought and interaction patterns. He proposed that a human would converse in text with a machine, and that another human would study the transcript of the conversation. If the evaluator could not tell which side of the conversation was human, the program would be said to have passed the “Turing Test.”
The point of the test, of course, is not to answer questions correctly — computers can be very good at that — but to give the kinds of answers that a human would give.
We detect humanity in various ways: We look for speech patterns, especially in phrasing and in use of idiom that fits the situation. We look for empathy, the signs that the one you’re talking to understands the feelings you express and is affected by your feelings. We look for signs our conversation partner is paying attention, and we get frustrated when the answers we receive suggest the other is giving us only half an ear.
And when we’re in severe distress, we look for signs the person we’re talking to appreciates the importance of what we’re telling them. When your child is in the hospital, the presumably human voice of the care manager at your insurance company needs to show some evidence of human feeling, not just the ability to explain the terms of your policy.
Few conversations are more important than the conversation between the American people and their president. We may not talk to him directly, but past presidents have listened for our voice in polls, in commentary from our media, in demonstrations, and in the voices of our representatives on both sides of the aisle.
Past presidents have also been aware, without the need for prompting, when we were stricken and in need of comfort, frightened and in need of reassurance, confused and in need of clarity, or divided and in need of leadership. G.W. Bush on 9/11. Obama after Sandy Hook. The humanness of their voices, shaking from the pressure of emotions so much like what we were feeling, was exactly what we needed in those moments.
Which brings us to Donald Trump.
The current White House resident talks to us through Twitter constantly, but he only talks about himself. He’s like the actress meeting with an old friend. Twenty minutes into the conversation, she says, “But enough about me, darling. What did YOU think of my latest picture?”
Were we to subject his conversation with the country to the Turing Test, how would he fare?
Do his utterances, either tweeted or aloud, sound like human speech?
Are there signs of empathy, evidence that he has any understanding of emotions others might be feeling?
How often do you get the feeling that he’s actually paying attention to what’s going on in the United States besides his reelection campaign?
And has he ever shown a shred of awareness of the country’s mood, or stepped up to the task of acting like a human leader caring for his people?
I’m not saying Donald Trump is secretly a robot or in any way not human. But whatever human qualities he does possess, in my opinion, have no impact on his handling of the presidency.
And his responses to our efforts as a nation to communicate with him as our presumptive leader — once again in my opinion — fail to show the human sensitivity and emotional responsiveness to pass the Turing Test.
More on Donald Trump:
Snowflake in Chief. Our so-called leader’s skin is just as… | by Edward Robson, PhD | Medium
