h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is there any way that you can tell that the other researchers are definitely people and not some kind of AI computer algorithms? I remember that Eliza was pretty convincing in the 1980s, so I'd imagine the technology could fool me now.

the only way i can think of is to go to a meet. but then how do you know that everyone there aren't actors, paid to maintain the pretence that h2g2 is maintain by real people?

(pinches herself)..ouch..i'm real....

....

I don't exist. I find myself floating through this thing you call life wondering what is happening, and what I am doing here (or am I there)..........

Have faith.

well ditto.How do We know YOU exist?
Icog.

The more challening question is: Can you prove that there are more than say 100 RL people posting here using different personae...?

How do we know anyone exists? Everyone in life - h2g2 and RL - could just be a figment of my imagination. Or yours.
*Mind goes back to the movie 'The Matrix.*
*Shudder.*

hate to disspoint you but there was 110 at a meet if that helps
of corse I dont know how many where reserches and how many where just friends

Which meet, the 2002 London one? I didn't count them but I recall a figure of 90 attending researchers. You'd have to add friends, parents ...

At the Danish Easter Meet (keep your eyes peeled for the report in the next h2g2 Post) there were certainly more h2g2 personae then people...

The upcoming USA (Penn.) Meet will be interesting I guess, number-wise as well.

Surely you don't believe that America exists?

All that happens is that you get put in a 'plane', which is really a giant simulator. This simulator is then put onto a train and carried accross mainland Europe to somewhere in Russia, made up to what we are told is "America". I know what's REALLY going on.

Unfortunately the field of computers-impersonating-people hasn't really moved on at all since Eliza... they ran into the slight problem that you *can't* just cheat to simulate a person, the thing has to have real knowledge of the thousands of aspects of every day life... and, in fact, it has to have real intelligence (the two sort of come hand in hand).

It may not seem like a big leap from Eliza to something that could fool you... but it is, a truly terrifyingly huge leap.

So you're safe for now

What was Eliza? How convincing was it?
...
People have intelligence?

As far as I remember Eliza was a simple computer program you could "talk" to using a conversationthread like this one.
The only thing it did was replying by changing your statements into a question, giving the impression of a really interested psychiatrist.

Of course we all really exist. You only don't know whether we are living people, intelligent programs or hiding aliens testing us, single or using one or more aliasses.

You know what? I really don't care as long as I cannot discover the difference and I am having fun.

Quoting Mrs. Slocumbe from "Are you being Served": I am unanimous in this. Or was it We are?

I don't think the Turing test has been fulfilled yet though they do issue prize each year for the best so far.

I know I am real. I also know that several other researchers are real having met them. I have also seen the hub of operations at bush house so I know that esists.
Do you Duncan Spearcarrier Jones? (and no a note from your mum won't help )

This was Eliza:

http://www-ai.ijs.si/eliza-cgi-bin/eliza_script

Duncan, Eliza really wasn't convincing. It fooled some people, but nobody had every encountered anything like it before. No computer has ever come up with the sort of insights that a three-year-old child can produce. Sadly, the state of Artificial Intelligence is nowhere near true intelligece. In the 60s, it was thought that intelligent computers were just around the corner. There was one in the film 2001, which was set only 24 years in the future. We've come a long way since then and have only just scratched the surface of intelligence.

Stephen Pinker gives the following dialogue:

Woman: I'm leaving.
Man: Who is he?

When a computer can understand that, it will be some way to being intelligent.

Hello There, my question is ,do I exist? and if I do, can I offer aand to this debate , if I don't exist will theandstill exist?

The

I don't exist

Neither do I