Despite a recognition that there is a fair share of hype, science fiction is quickly becoming science fact ever so swiftly.
Just this week it was announced that a computer has finally passed the Turing Test 64 years after it was proposed.
This test is designed to gauge whether a computer can pass as human by conversing with a series of real humans in text-based chats so that the humans are none the wiser that the intellgence on the other end is in fact artificial.
A fictionalized pass of the Turing Test was awarded in last year’s British attempt to create the quintessential dystopian A.I. run-amok film The Machine.
But only one year after the release of this film – incidently much more plausible than this year’s Johnny Depp-stinker Transcendence, the Turing Test has indeed been passed: in reality.
Now, Siri, Google Now, Cortana, all attempts at a human serving A.I. by the big 3 respectively: Apple, Google, and Microsoft, will surely advance and learn as we go.
So while the hype of a computer that can fool human judges as to its own humanity is – yes – still a bit overblown, for the supposed human is presented as a 13 year old foreigner—not exactly an Einstein—how long until the rest of The Machine is also no longer science fiction but, actually, science fact?