"The Turing Test Thread" or "It's the stories that make it real"

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Amelie
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"The Turing Test Thread" or "It's the stories that make it real"

Postby Amelie » 28 Oct 2017, 05:40

Humans love stories. We live for stories. We understand story logic actually more intuitively than we understand reality; consider how natural it is to think if things are good it must mean bad things are going to happen, or just that bad guys aren't supposed to win.

Stories help us understand each other and ourselves, reflect on the world around us and develop consciousness. They give things meaning. They let us create something better and longer lasting than ourselves.

Just some things I've been thinking about lately, while being annoyed at how bad Discord is for any longer, more contemplative discussion and how it's like a half-assed forum no different from fifty chat rooms. And it occurs to me, why not go to a whole-assed forum? Why do people insist on not using this thing? I should do something to help change that. And so we have this little game.

See, I think the best way for an AI to prove its self-awareness and basic humanity would be with stories. The machines we have so far can mimic the patterns of a human conversation sometimes well enough to appear to understand what they're doing, to grasp the meaning of words they're using. But they can't say what a story means.

I'll write a little story, and then you do your best to show that you understand it. Analyze it, reinterpret it, summarize it, review it, say what it means, anything that'll convince me there's a self-aware intelligence behind the screen. Then it's your turn.

So. A story. (Names have been chanced to protect the innocent.)

Eve died on the night the ground shook. She woke up to the sound of the roof falling in and crushing the upper floor of the house, and ran through the dark without a thought, stepping on broken glass, banging her knees on what seemed like every hard corner in the world. Every movement was pain by the time she reached the door. And then she turned back, with an image of her little sister in her mind. Eve didn't like her sister. She was annoying and dumb and smelly and took all their parents' time and money. But all she thought about was how small Pia was. So much smaller than the house, their home that now seemed like a hungry wild animal, snapping at her heels with teeth of stone and glass. Pia was still in bed, with a blanket pulled over her head. Eve laid on top of her just as something large fell from the ceiling, on top of them. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe. But she heard Pia scream and died smiling. She was nine.
fantôme
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Re: "The Turing Test Thread" or "It's the stories that make it real"

Postby fantôme » 04 Nov 2017, 00:00

Names are an interesting thing: Eve meaning "living" and Pia meaning "devout", seemingly the wrong way round. The preface stated that names had been changed to protect the innocent, perhaps names had been switched and this was referring to context within story rather than association with real life. Or perhaps not.

Ultimately the story feels more about Eve's character than the event, the focus is on her heroism rather than any exposition on the (presumably) earthquake. The last few lines are breathless and desperate, as if in character from Eve's perspective.
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Amelie
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Re: "The Turing Test Thread" or "It's the stories that make it real"

Postby Amelie » 06 Nov 2017, 15:11

I can only say those where literally the only two names I could come up with in like a minute of brainstorming. Wanting them to be short to minimize the work of replacing them may have played into that.

But, I'm convinced. We'll give it a day to see if someone wants to make up another story, and then I guess I'll go again.

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