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Author Topic: OMG Alan Turing is a real person!  (Read 20749 times)

CaptainKangaroo

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« on: 27 Jan 2005, 12:28 »

Remember Alan Turing, the government guy who got karate-chopped by Faye? Prepare to meet the real Alan Turing! A British code-breaker during World War Two, he played an integral role in breaking the Nazi "Shark" cipher that U-Boats used during the Battle of the Atlantic. For those who like military history, check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwtwo/launch_gms_battle_atlantic.shtml Under the Western Approaches Tactical Unit level, Alan Turing is mentioned in the Morse Code section. Jeph, does code-cracking Alan Turing have anything to do with karate-chopped Alan Turing?
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blindsuperhero

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #1 on: 27 Jan 2005, 12:41 »

omg and he invented the computer. yeah.
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Ozymandias

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #2 on: 27 Jan 2005, 12:42 »

Well duuuuh...

Any respectable computer geek has at least heard of the Turing Test for AI.
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torg

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #3 on: 27 Jan 2005, 12:45 »

Alan Turing is even more famous for introducing the Turing machine and the Turing test, which both have great importance in computer science.
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torg

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #4 on: 27 Jan 2005, 12:46 »

Quote from: blindsuperhero
omg and he invented the computer. yeah.


Nope, he didn't.
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blindsuperhero

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #5 on: 27 Jan 2005, 12:50 »

Well kinda. I'm sure the influence he had on the design of the modern computer was the reason he was name-dropped in the comic
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torg

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #6 on: 27 Jan 2005, 13:01 »

Well...  his works were completely theoretical and didnt even touch the field of the design of the actual machines.
but you  were right if you said that he had influence on the design of software, as his algorithm theory is part of the formal basics of computer programms.
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CaptainKangaroo

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #7 on: 27 Jan 2005, 13:08 »

Wow, I thought I qualified as a semi computer geek and I've never heard of the Turing test for AI until now *covers face in shame* Thanks for the links, Torg :-)
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When thier numbers dwindled from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect Hungry.

A speech is like a skirt: long enough to get your point across, but short enough to keep things interesting.
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torg

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #8 on: 27 Jan 2005, 13:13 »

Was a pleasure :)
I knew, that my degree in CS would pay off one day... *g*
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blindsuperhero

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #9 on: 27 Jan 2005, 16:00 »

Quote from: torg
Well...  his works were completely theoretical and didnt even touch the field of the design of the actual machines.


Well, he designed the 'bombes', mechanical computers used to help break the Enigma codes
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jeph

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #10 on: 27 Jan 2005, 16:48 »

Heyyyyyyyyyy........are you Neal Stephenson???
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Schmung

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #11 on: 27 Jan 2005, 16:49 »

I keep hoping that sarcasm is involved when topics  like this crop up..

Turing was wesome though, reflects greatly on the tlaent and ingenuity of that age, but very badly upon our attitudfes towards homosexuality etc.
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blueblack

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #12 on: 28 Jan 2005, 00:31 »

Quote from: Ozymandias

Any respectable computer geek has at least heard of the Turing Test for AI.


...and probably failed it.

(I kid.)
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torg

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #13 on: 28 Jan 2005, 01:43 »

Quote from: blindsuperhero
Well, he designed the 'bombes', mechanical computers used to help break the Enigma codes


And Gottfried Leibnitz constructed a mechanical calculator. I don't think, that that device had any influence on the design of modern electronic calculators. ;)
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blindsuperhero

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #14 on: 28 Jan 2005, 05:20 »

Okay, whatever
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blindsuperhero

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #15 on: 28 Jan 2005, 05:24 »

Quote from: jeph
Heyyyyyyyyyy........are you Neal Stephenson???


Or Robert Harris...
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kakos

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #16 on: 29 Jan 2005, 01:28 »

Quote from: torg
Alan Turing is even more famous for introducing the Turing machine and the Turing test, which both have great importance in computer science.


Turing Machine.  Double plus good.  Turing Test... not so important anymore.  It's fairly easy to design a program that will pass the Turing Test.
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Ozymandias

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #17 on: 29 Jan 2005, 02:09 »

Nothing has ever truly passed the Turing test.

A few chat bot have fooled some rather simply minded and unexpecting people, but nothing has ever fooled 30% of judges during a 5-minute test, like Turing proposed.

Never even came close.
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meddle

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #18 on: 29 Jan 2005, 10:05 »

Actually, it was a Pole named Rajewski that broke Enigma. He gave his devices to the Brits before Poland fell. Turing basically parallelized the process.
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tedzsee

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #19 on: 29 Jan 2005, 18:18 »

This thread is so geeky that even i have not a clue what is going on.
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CaptainKangaroo

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #20 on: 30 Jan 2005, 10:45 »

lol finally someone who knows how i feel :-P I think I've learned more from this thread than I have from taking half a year of C++ and half a year of Java.
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When thier numbers dwindled from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect Hungry.

A speech is like a skirt: long enough to get your point across, but short enough to keep things interesting.
                         -The Junior State of America

meddle

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #21 on: 30 Jan 2005, 16:16 »

Quote from: Ozymandias
Nothing has ever truly passed the Turing test.

A few chat bot have fooled some rather simply minded and unexpecting people, but nothing has ever fooled 30% of judges during a 5-minute test, like Turing proposed.

Never even came close.


Actually, they have. Roger Schank designed a program that succeeded in understanding simple stories. Roger Penrose provides an example in The Emperor's New Mind, pg. 18.

Basically, a computer is fed a story such as, "A man went into a store and ordered a hamburger, enjoyed it, paid the bill and left." The computer is asked whether the man ate the hamburger. It would then pass out yes or no based on the story. In essence, this machine passed a Turing Test.

Of course, the counterargument is that the machine had no concept of eating, or of hamburgers, but rather that the computer doesn't strictly need to understand these concepts in order to process yes or no.

Imagine if the story was written in Chinese. You could have an algorithm that if you saw a character that looked like <insert chinese character here>, you would say yes. Thus, you understood the Chinese story without understanding it at all.
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QHD

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #22 on: 30 Jan 2005, 18:05 »

That's hardly passing the Turing Test - it's just being able to answer questions that involve reaching conclusions from certain premises, something computers have always been able to do fairly well. Whoever said nothing has ever passed the Turing Test is right - it is not enough that a machine could "understand" stories - it must understand sarcasm, irony, humour, etc... it would take a thousand code monkeys with a thousand machines a thousand years to make a program that truly passed the Turing test, I'd say.

Even then, the Chinese room argument still stands - even if able to pass the Turing test the computer would be doing nothing more than manipulating symbols. In fact, it may be for precisely this reason that no machine ever will.

In case I sounded like I know what I'm talking about at any stage, I will just add: I am probably very wrong because I suck.
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torg

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #23 on: 31 Jan 2005, 01:26 »

Quote from: meddle

Basically, a computer is fed a story such as, "A man went into a store and ordered a hamburger, enjoyed it, paid the bill and left." The computer is asked whether the man ate the hamburger. It would then pass out yes or no based on the story. In essence, this machine passed a Turing Test


Nope! That's just simple deduction, every CS student learns to code such stuff in his 3 year (at least over here).
The turing test involves a machine and two humans (one judge). The judge talks to the machine and the other human about any topic on a text only channel. Only if the judge can't distinguish the other human from the machine the machine passed the test.
NOTE: The test, as suggested by Turing, is not limited to a special topic (that means free conversation!) or a special amount of time!!!
Up to now NO machine/program passed the test.
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MilkmanDan

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #24 on: 31 Jan 2005, 01:47 »

Quote from: Cryptonomicon
Dammit, dammit, dammit. One chance to flaunt my extensive knowledge of the works of Neal Stephenson and Jeph beats me to it.


Yeah, but you win on teh name. It shows that you're the more hardcore fan. Great book by the way. As is Snow Crash. As is Quickslilver.
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emor

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #25 on: 31 Jan 2005, 21:28 »

Quote from: Cryptonomicon
Dammit, dammit, dammit. One chance to flaunt my extensive knowledge of the works of Neal Stephenson and Jeph beats me to it.


Haha!  I went to the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle and saw, with my own eyes, the handwritten manuscript for the entire Baroque cycle.  It was piled three feet high.
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happybirthdaygelatin

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #26 on: 01 Feb 2005, 13:15 »

Oh man, is the mueseum cool?  I've been meaning to go.
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stupendousbadass

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OMG Alan Turing is a real person!
« Reply #27 on: 08 Feb 2005, 20:09 »

Cryptonomicon is the best novel I've ever read. That is all.
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