The Turing Test (I)

The great computer scientist Alan Turing said that if "human judges ask interview questions of a hidden computer and a hidden person and cannot tell the difference  after five minutes, the computer should be considered intelligent". I asked my family to conduct a series of tests on a hidden me and a hidden computer and, do you know, in every single case they guessed (to be continued)


In a later development, I then took the part of a "human judge"  and asked questions of a hidden computer and a hidden member of my family. At the end of five minutes of what I thought was intense, if somewhat robotic questioning I was unable to decide which was which, or indeed where they were hidden.


Finally, I asked the computer itself to make with the questions but by this time my family, in plenary session, decided that the joke was beginning to wear a bit thin.


You don't need the Turing Test to find out whether people are bilingual or not. Just fire a series of numbers at them and ask them to note them down. Alternatively, you could spell out a few words fairly quickly and see how well people manage to transcribe them. Unless someone is truly bilingual he or she will quickly lose his or her way in one of the two languages. That is certainly the case with me in French even after all these years living in this debt-ridden country. Unfortunately, I'm not much better in English these days. Incidentally, I see that another 8 years of austerity are forecast for the UK (another debt- not to say bed-ridden country). With such rigour and austerity everywhere it hardly seems worth contemplating - and I use this word advisedly - a career in a monastery.