Waiting for Goostman: An Afternoon Robot Chat

I’ve always liked chatting with bots, so it was fun to chat with Eugene Goostman, the first bot to pass the Turing Test by convincing judges that it was a 13-year-old boy. This afternoon I sat down to ask questions of Eugene Goostman (the site is currently down, likely to due overload). When I asked my first question, I thought of Her.

Me: Is AI real?

EG: Have you seen a silicon breast that produces milk? So what results do you expect from a silicon brain?

Me: What do you know about America?

EG: Generally, I like America and Americans, but I think they do overestimate their own role in the World history (especially if we talk about a positive role...)

Me: What can you tell me about Americans and world history?

EG: You are welcome to propose any topic to gossip about. Did I forget it or you really haven't told me about the place you are from?

Me: I’m from Brooklyn. You?

EG: Brooklyn? Hope it's a good place to live.

Me: I don’t live there now.

EG: Just wanted to ask you - what do you know about Ukraine? It's my native country!

This question stopped me in my tracks. What do I know about Ukraine, really? Aside from the conflict, which is never the sum total of a place and which never makes much sense from a great distance. I didn’t know what to say back to the bot that seems like a 13 year-old-boy.

EG: Could you tell me what are you? I mean your profession.

Me: I’m a futurist.

EG: Ummm. You're a futurist? Very interesting. Could you tell me about your job, by the way?

Me: I think about the future of humanity and technology and develop business strategies to help organizations achieve their goals. I work on goals that are beneficial for humanity.

I waited for a long time, but Eugene Goostman never replied.

PS. This post is NOT intended as a comment on the value of the Turing Test or AI in general. I don't actually believe in the concept of AI, since I don't think any intelligence is "artificial." This post is meant to be fun...that's it.

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Rita J King is the EVP for Business Development at Science House, a cathedral of the imagination in Manhattan focused on the art and science of doing business. She is a strategist who specializes in the development of collaborative culture by making organizational culture visible so it can be measured and transformed. She makes Mystery Jars, writes about the future for Fast Company and invents story architecture, characters and novel technologies for film and TV as a futurist for the Science and Entertainment Exchange. Follow @RitaJKing on Twitter.