Thread · HN Continuity

While I'm generally excited and enthusiastic on AI progress I'm not sure the Turing test is there yet. In the original conceptualization of a Turing test there was no time limit or judge specified. Turing hints at 5 minutes but does not explicitly state it. I do think a modern LLM and many clever non-LLM programs could easily beat a 5 minute test.

However, I feel the the canonical Turing test bet is still not passed: <a href="https://longbets.org/1/" rel="nofollow">https://longbets.org/1/

In 2002 Kurzweil bet Kapor that no computer will pass the Turing test. The test proposed is a 2 hour unrestricted conversation with three relative experts, Kurzweil, Kapor, and one third person they agree on. These are pretty extreme conditions, frontier LLMs can fool the most people in shot convos. But, I do not believe any LLM can make it two hours without slipping up against three people who are fairly familiar with LLMs.

I've personally had many 2 hour conversations with frontier models under various personas and I don't think any are close to passing for anyone who has read any quantity of LLM writing. Context rot is still very real, LLMs still have a ton of tells, and they tend not to be willing to push back enough. That being said these are things you notice talking to LLMs a lot, I do think that most of the time frontier LLMs could fool someone who does not use them much for two hours, but they'd probably notice weirdness.

Like many questions here it's somewhat ambiguous. Which Turing test was the original poster talking about? Which Turing test are we thinking about? What is the original spirit of the Turing test? I marked that one as unsure but I could see someone fairly marking it as yes or no.