A competition called the Turing test takes place each year. Judges at computer terminals interact with unseen correspondents. Each judge has two correspondents, one a human being and one a computer program, and the judge tries to tell which is which after a five minute online conversation with each. The program that receives the most votes and highest judge confidence score is named the Most Human Computer. This title is highly coveted by programmers. A side result of the voting, however, is that the human who receives the most votes and highest judge confidence score is named the Most Human Human.

It is from this side of the Turing test that author Brian Christian writes his book The Most Human Human. He sets out to participate in the test as a correspondent and to win the Most Human Human title. Along the way, he philosophizes about what it means to be human and how our interaction with computers is affecting that. He notes, “We once thought humans were unique for having a language with syntactical rules, but this isn’t so; we once thought humans were unique for using tools, but this isn’t so; we once thought humans were unique for being able to do mathematics, and now we can barely imagine being able to do what our calculators can.”

The author makes the point that cell phones, texting, and programs that finish our words for us are making us less creative. It is easier to use the word the phone suggests than to fight the phone and type the word we meant to use. He writes, “I was detachedly roaming the Internet, but there was nothing interesting happening in the news, nothing interesting happening on Facebook…I grew despondent, depressed – the world used to seem so interesting…But all of a sudden it dawned on me, as if the thought had just occurred to me, that much of what is interesting and amazing about this world did not happen in the past twenty-four hours. How had this fact slipped away from me? …. Somehow I think the Internet is making this very critical point lost on an entire demographic.”

Christian is an interesting guy. He has a dual bachelor’s degree in computer science and philosophy and a master of fine arts in poetry. He understands the scientific angle of the Turing test but also the human side of what it means for a human to challenge a computer. There is a wonderful scene during the Turing test when he spies on a fellow human correspondent’s chat with a judge and realizes they are chatting in shorthand about Canadian hockey teams, virtually assuring that the judge knows he is talking to a human. This causes Christian a moment of panic and despair when he fears that he will lose the Most Human Human title.

Christian’s views on how we interact with the world are refreshing. He says, “I think the reason novels are regarded to have so much more ‘information’ than films is that they outsource the scenic design and cinematography to the reader. … This, for me, is a powerful argument for the value and potency of literature specifically.” I felt somewhat lost toward the end of the book when it got a bit scientific, but the science was not too overwhelming, and I wouldn’t let that put you off as a potential reader. I enjoyed this book tremendously, and it really made me think.

This is a fascinating book that looks at artificial intelligence through the lens of humanity. Brian Christian offers up his own personal journey of competing for the Loebner Prize's most human human award. He investigates conversation while relating the stories to advances in computer intelligence. There are so many fascinating topics explored with a deeply human edge to them.

Got this advice from a friend, starting to read it...

Seems interesting in concept.
Can a machine be more human than a "real" human ?

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Wow! Started out very interesting, but now its heading to a detailed analytical discourse that has me lost. Still interesting, but demanding too much brain power and attention, not so light anymore...

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Finished!
A book about so many topics (almost all computer/tech related) that are seemingly disconnected, yet all touch base with the subject of human comunication and evolution. Very interesting!

Read this in PDF but it merits buying and re-reading the book in paper to try and get more "juice".

Spoiler

So I should start off saying this is not my typical genre, but I love our bookclub because we read a diverse range of books. I did vote for this one because I was intrigued by the concept human vs AI chat bots... but also proving yourself as human in a world becoming increasingly more mechanized both in the physical act of technology growing and at a deeper level of us ourselves as a species becoming more "computerized". However it ended there for me. I can usually cruise through an audio book pretty quickly due to commuting around but I couldn't listen to this one for more then 20 minutes at a time. I give author's credit for narrating their own stories, I couldn't do it, but I felt it was VERY computerized/techy. I also just wanted to hear about the transcripts themselves from the competition, I understood the dissection of dialogue/human interactions in general, but I was completely lost and subsequently bored out of my mind, listening about Chess for over an hour, and bits and zipping. I felt like the author has a lot of specific, we'll call them "nerd" interests, and he wanted to push them all into the story, some flowed but most did not. I am rating a two because despite my disinterest in it, I have already recommended to a few others in the target audience for this book, who I think will enjoy the tangents and overall concepts explored, however I think there was a big miss in being able to connect with a wider population in general, like myself someone who doesn't usually read non-fiction but was intrigued by the concept.

Entertaining and illuminating!

Christian writes from the perspective that it will be bad if and when machines are intelligent, he's kind of an anti Ray Kurzweil. I completely disagree with his viewpoint but his book is interesting and illustrates lots of Turing problems that I'd never considered.

He goes on to say that it will not happen that the same bot will win year after year but is proved wrong just 2 years after the book is written by Mitsuku who won in 2013,2016-2019

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsuku

Brian Christian is a computer scientist and a philosopher, but the book is not about the computational or philosophical aspects of intelligence. The book is barely an introduction to what he thinks humans should be. There is a complete lack of rigour in the presentation of the ideas, no main thread of discussion is followed and no new information.

A bunch of relevant subjects such as artificial intelligence, natural language processing and machine learning are treated with a naive perspective, charged with some religious connotations.

This book looks into the evolution of AI and the linguistic anomalies that make human communication distinct and meaningful. I finished it yesterday and am still thinking about it. Pretty darned good.

Every year computer scientists compete in for the Loebner Prize in artificial intelligence. The competition is based on the Turing Test whereby ‘blind’ judges interact with a computer chatbot and a human, and then have to decide which is which. The main prize, of course, is for the computer programme that comes closest to convincing the judges it is human - that it can pass for genuine intelligence. But there is another prize too: for the human who convinces the most judges they are not a computer. This is the task Brian Christian sets himself in this enjoyable tour of the challenges of creating a computer that thinks and behaves like a human. Note, this may not be the same as creating real intelligence. Past successes in the Turing test have come through programmes that mimic irritability, changing the subject or pretending not to fully understand English.

One of the easiest ways to trip up a chatbot is to refer to something ‘site-specific’. You can have millions of lines of densely programmed code tripped up immediately by a reference to the weather outside, or by noting the test has started 15 minutes late. There are enjoyable digressions into the world of chess computers and the philosophy of language. The fact that one chapter opens with quotes from both Plato and Phil Collins shows that the author - a science journalist - does not take himself too seriously.

The ultimate lesson, though, lies not for the way computers can be improved in their artificial intelligence, but in how our own interactions with technology often have a narrowing effect on language. Auto-corrected text messages, auto-fill Google searches and other online communication often follows rigid patterns that are easier to mimic than we might like to admit.