Mustafa Suleyman, a founder of DeepMind and the founder of Inflection.Ai, has proposed a new kind of Turing test for chatbots. In his upcoming book, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma, Suleyman suggests that the traditional Turing test is no longer a meaningful measure of AI and should be replaced.
The Turing test, proposed by British mathematician Alan Turing in 1950, has long been considered a benchmark for determining whether a computer can think like a human. In this test, human evaluators conduct blind, text-only conversations with two subjects — one human and one machine. Suppose the computer is so conversationally dexterous that the evaluator cannot distinguish between the two reliably. In that case, the computer is said to have passed the Turing test and achieved a level of intelligence.
Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Bing Chat have come close to passing this legendary threshold. However, Suleyman argues that the Turing test is no longer serving as an inspiration or a meaningful measure of AI. His proposal for a modern Turing test represents a significant shift in the conversation about AI and its future potential.
Successful Investing to Measure Artificial Intelligence
In Suleyman's proposed “modern Turing test”, an AI is given a seed investment of $100,000. The challenge for the AI is to turn this initial investment into $1 million. To achieve this, the AI would need to research an e-commerce business opportunity, generate blueprints for a product, find a manufacturer on a site like Alibaba, and then sell the item (complete with a written listing description) on platforms like Amazon or Walmart.com.
This new test would be designed to measure what Suleyman refers to as artificial capable intelligence (ACI): programs that can set goals and achieve complex tasks with minimal human intervention. Suleyman expects AI will pass this more practical threshold sometime in the next two years, marking a significant milestone in the evolution of AI capabilities.
The implications of such a new Turing test are far-reaching and could potentially revolutionize various sectors. If AI can successfully pass this test, it could signify a major shift in the capabilities of AI, moving from mere conversation to complex task execution. This could have a transformative impact on sectors such as e-commerce and manufacturing, potentially leading to increased efficiency and cost savings.
Significant Economic Impact
An AI's successful completion of the modern Turing test could have significant economic impacts. The ability of AI to generate substantial financial returns could attract more investment into AI research and development, potentially accelerating the pace of AI advancement.
Critics of Suleyman´s proposal point out that this new test could potentially lead to the development of AI systems that prioritize profit over ethical considerations, raising important questions about the ethical implications of AI's increasing capabilities.
