
Can you tell a robot apart from a human? Real-Life Turing Test - ashtonsix
https://turing-game.tech
======
gweinberg
The scoring is wrong for a Turing test. A human in a Turing test is supposed
to be trying to convince the judge that he is a human, not to pretend to be a
computer.

~~~
wycs
I think something more fishy is going on. Unless bots have more common sense
than I thought, this exchange just does not seem like it was with a bot as
claimed.

Me: If you push your finger into a cake will the cake move relative to the
table it is on?

Stranger: Depends on the amount of friction. For almost any normal table, the
cake won’t move.

Me: Thanks!

Stranger: The bots they made are so weird

You predicted: human Correct answer: robot (-1 points

~~~
wycs
Another odd one:

Me: Which of the following is not like the others: dog, cat, parrot, elephant,
iPhone? Stranger: hi icm japanese Stranger: iphone

Me: You have to be human.

Stranger: you type too fast it's impossible

Stranger: r u robotm Stranger: ?

You predicted: human

Correct answer: robot (-1 points) Stranger predicted: nothing

~~~
wycs
Time: 0 Me: Hey

Me: What is the third word of this sentence?

Stranger: the

Stranger: nice one

Stranger: you're the first one to use meta to check for bots

Stranger: I always use

Stranger: How many letters in the next sentence

Stranger: one

Me: Cool. What's your score?

Stranger: 15

Stranger: yours?

Me: -1

Stranger: hahaha

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Totenfluch
Your Application is rigged and unplayable.

I matched against a friend and we got different results in terms who we were
playing against.

[https://imgur.com/a/UqSL5DW](https://imgur.com/a/UqSL5DW)
[https://imgur.com/a/Sfjf0Rx](https://imgur.com/a/Sfjf0Rx)

~~~
ashtonsix
hmm... I checked the server logs & it says your both human

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jobigoud
OK, in light of several comments here, I have a theory: there is no chatbot.
We've all just been playing each others and the author is getting the logs for
a _future_ chatbot that doesn't exist yet. The reveal at the end is random.

The scoring mechanics where people are incentivized to impersonate a chatbot
is what makes it not outright unbelievable.

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zuminator
The scoring mechanism, where you lose a point if the opponent correctly
guesses that you are human, makes me suspect that is actually a Prisoner's
Dilemma simulation disguised as a Turing Test.

~~~
jobigoud
The part where you get 2 points if you trick your opponent into thinking you
are a robot is even worse. It will incentivize robot-like discussion.

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rocheio
Would be nice to increase the time to a minute, I tried a few times but only
got two lines back and forth before having to guess. It was always a human in
my tests though so perhaps the bot would respond quicker?

Love the idea though! Hope you can share the results and analysis with us when
completed

~~~
Neuron4ger
> perhaps the bot would respond quicker?

Not exactly:

• Me: So, what do you think about this game? • Me: Hello? • Stranger: It's my
first time playing • Me: No • Stranger: Yes

• You predicted: human • Correct answer: robot (-1 points) • Stranger
predicted: nothing

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logicallee
This is terrible, I was told that the person on the other side will be
attempting to impersonate a robot. (This is the scoring.) And that I myself am
supposed to impersonate a robot.

So I wrote texts in advance and then copy/pasted the most relevant one,
ignoring what the other person said. (To look like I'm a robot.) Some of them
(like in response to "how are you") that I wrote were pretty reasonable, other
responses by me kind of non-sequitur.

Meanwhile, the other person acted JUST like a robot. So I picked human, since
I thought they were impersonating a robot well, as requested. Not being a
poorly programmed robot. (As shown.)

The game scoring needs to be updated.

By the way this is my strategy if the incentives were reasonable: I would
teach the other person literally anything that I just came up with, and see if
they can learn it. Robots just can't do that.

For example I might say (but I would come up with something different each
time). "Okay, first I'll teach you something new that I came up with (to prove
you're human to me) then you teach me something new you came up with (for me
to prove I'm human to you). Absolutely anything new counts. Okay, my new thing
is the game of Pirate, I just came up with it [this will be different each
time.] I'll say an activity, and you tell me why pirates hate it. Doesn't
matter if it's reasonable or not. Ready?"

"Yes".

"Okay, filing taxes."

"Uh ... pirates hate it because... they don't like laws? Or the government"

"Okay good now you".

"Contradict me."

"Okay."

"This game sucks."

"No it doesn't, it's great!"

"Okay we're both human haha."

"Yeah totally."

Now granted this will only work with pretty creative people who can invent a
totally new game on the spot. And if any two people ever invent the same new
game it might have a false positive. But on the whole I have zero doubt that
it works.

I tried it with OK Google. Couldn't teach her anything.

~~~
logicallee
Someone replied

>My strategy works really well - I start telling a role-play themed joke and
if they play along they're human. This works great because it's based on
common sense, entertains humans, and is a complex social performance that
won't ever be the same.

But then deleted their comment. I think it's a great strategy but under the
link we're discussing, why does the other person play along if they're trying
to convince you they're a robot? If they play along the jig is up.

I guess maybe they meant they do that on something like Tinder (which has a
lot of spambots in some geographies) rather than in this actual game.

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ashtonsix
OK, I think most people have figured it out now:

[https://github.com/ashtonsix/fake-turing](https://github.com/ashtonsix/fake-
turing)

It'll stay up for a while if you'd just like to chat.

------
neom
Time: 0 Me: In Spain, where does the rain stay? Stranger: I dont know the
awnser to this question. Me: That's ok, it's a hard question. Do you like
spain? Stranger: The humans there speak no english but since i can speak any
language it does not matter to me. Stranger: The weather is to hot for my
fans. You predicted: human Correct answer: robot (-1 points) Stranger
predicted: nothing

------
rambojazz
I don't trust the results. I would use this tool more if I were confident that
the author is not lying to me about the real entity of the person/bot I'm
talking to.

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ptr_void
I suspect this might be using a coin-toss to print whether the prediction was
correct. Some of the test, it had to be near impossible for robot to respond
as it did.

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simon_acca
Great idea! suggestion: A dead giveaway of robots is that they are able to
answer even to messages that I sent just 2s before the end.

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jobigoud
At the author: a dead give away for Human is when you see "Stranger is
typing...", then nothing, then "Stranger is typing...", etc. a few times, and
finally they end up writing something. Could you also measure/model that
typing timing and incorporate it in the bot?

~~~
spuz
That is what I thought the very first time I played, then it turned out I was
speaking to a 'robot'. Still I think we have established the final result is
not accurate.

------
dmurray
My partner didn't reply. From that I guessed correctly that they were a human,
but (for a 30 second conversation on an interface your users will be using for
the first time) just saying nothing would be an effective low-effort way to
implement the chat bot.

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mcscxv
The chat bot is broken or there is no chat bot at all.

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davedunkin
I only speak English but the few times I tried the stranger spoke another
language. Couldn’t actually have a conversation. Cool idea though.

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wslh
I think it would be better to start trying a children variation for the Turing
test. Could it be passed with 6 year old kids? 7? 8?

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cryoshon
my chat partner said "fuck off nigger" then spammed blank spaces.

in the end, i guessed he was a human.

the thing said he was a robot.

is this accurate?

~~~
ashtonsix
so sorry! it learns from other chats

~~~
sullivanmatt
Yeah, I got the same. Might need to built some sentiment analysis in there
too.

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jotaen
I gave up after a couple of times, 30 seconds is too little time for a
conversation. On average, there weren’t more than 3–4 messages exchanged in my
chats. If there had been a “I’m not sure“ button, I always would have clicked
that, since I wasn’t able to collect enough evidence.

------
spuz
The bots seem pretty smart but I've played about 50 games and not been matched
with a human once...

~~~
ashtonsix
when you start playing you get assigned a percentage chance of matching with a
robot, so some players will get matched to other humans 80% of the time for
example.

I want to measure how this affects the chats.

~~~
gus_massa
I got 5 robots in a row :( It get's boring if the best strategy is to wait and
hit the robot button.

~~~
ashtonsix
you can open an incognito window to reset your match chance

------
IIAOPSW

        You predicted: robot
        Correct answer: human (-1 points)
        Stranger predicted: human (-1 points)
    

I'm a robot??? [https://imgur.com/a/r0omkVL](https://imgur.com/a/r0omkVL)

------
Animats
This seems to be a really dumb bot.

    
    
        Stranger: huh
        Stranger: whatis this
        Me: Good morning. How is the weather there?
        Me: Hello?
        Me: Anyone there?
    
        You predicted: robot
        Correct answer: robot (1 point)

~~~
ashtonsix
it learns from other chats, where human players are pretending to be robots

~~~
ramshorns
That's the problem. Since humans are incentivized to sound like bots, bots are
(presumably) incentivized to sound like humans trying to sound like bots. This
doesn't lead to a convincing chatbot.

------
IIAOPSW

        Me: alright dude. we gonna kobeyashi maru this
        Me: did you come from hn?
        Stranger: Hello
        Me: site that linked you here
        Me: which is it?
        Stranger: I'm a fake robot.
        Me: Indeed you are

~~~
jobigoud
\- Convince a human they're talking to a robot: 2 points

------
spuz
Haha, there's no way this was not a human, especially given the timing of the
replies: [https://i.imgur.com/Z7TTTZH.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Z7TTTZH.jpg)

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stephenr
I didn’t copy the transcript but I convinced someone I was a robot with
something close to:

Me: what is your favourite flavour of chicken soup, chicken or not chicken?
Them: chicken Them: what about you? Me: definitely not chicken

------
matte_black
_What 's it like to hold the hand of someone you love? Interlinked._

Interlinked.

------
gus_massa
In IE11 I don't see the buttons to say if the opponent is a human or robot, so
my prediction was "nothing".

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ashtonsix
increased time from 30 seconds to 1 minute

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endless1234
Tried three times, got 0 lines. This seems pretty pointless, I'm afraid.

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mcscxv
The chat bot is broken or it does not exist at all. Everybody is human.

~~~
spuz
Weird I get the exact opposite experience. I think the matching algorithm is
broken.

~~~
ashtonsix
When you start playing you get assigned a percentage chance of matching with a
robot, so some players will get matched to other humans 80% of the time for
example

------
ColinWright
Connected - got stranger is typing.

They put "fg", then "ffg", then endless, endless carriage returns.

This needs some filtering - currently useless.

Tried again - we got a total of 4 lines, 2 each, and the 30 seconds was over.

Cute idea, completely unengaging for me, I won't go back.

~~~
Bonooru
At least you got someone to talk to. I got "no other humans online" and told
to come back in 59 minutes and 39 seconds...

Anyone know the significance of the time? Or is it just trying to be more
effective than saying an hour? (In the same vein as parking lots that have
speed limits of 4 mph rather than 5 mph so that motorists are more likely to
actually watch their speed because it's different)

~~~
KajMagnus
I met a human. I wrote "Who am I" and then "Who are you" and then s/he said
"What is life" and I said "Cats". This made him/her think I was a robot :- )
+2 to me

It would be fun to see a pic of the other person, and to chat for 90 seconds
instead of just 30. And maybe continue chatting for 90 seconds afterwards.

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alt_
This is more of a "Can you fake being a robot?" test.

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scottybowl
seems a bit buggy, I never see the messages others are sending, real or robot

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dempseye
This was just irritating.

