Would Cortana Pass the Turing Test? My Decade-Old Position on AI Believability published in "Halo and Philosophy" (2011)

In undergrad, I majored in Comp Sci, with minors in Jazz and Philosophy of Mind. While doing Summer research, I worked with, Philosopher, Dr. Hanley, who had just edited a book on South Park and Philosophy. At some point, I went down the rabbit hole of the dozens of Pop-Culture and Philosophy books, sad that I had missed out on contributing to Final Fantasy and Philosophy. As soon as I’d heard about the next opportunity, that there was a call for chapters for Halo and Philosophy, I decided to throw my hat in the ring.

10 years ago, when Cortana the Microsoft voice assistant (2014) had yet to exist, I posed the question “Would Cortana (the fictional AI from the Halo Universe) pass the Turing Test?” in the publication Halo and Philosophy: Intellect Evolved (Popular Culture and Philosophy, 59) Paperback – June 7, 2011.

It’s cool that I’ve stuck to this interest for over a decade, before I had any idea that AI would have as much of a household hype as it does today. While it’s really cringe to read anything you’ve done in the past, much less 10 years into the past, I’m in a much more privileged position now than ever (with much more humility, I’d hope!) The most advanced AI work is going on around me, which enables me to see how little the world really understands about it. This work is both not as exciting but (in other ways) more exciting than is publicly and popularly talked about. It’s also apparent, seeing news reports focused on sensational headlines rather than the real work happening, that we should figure out how we shape the beliefs and literacy around the technologies we invent.

The attention economy kind of distorts our priorities towards whats gonna land the most views in the present rather than the more beneficial (perhaps with delayed but) higher payoffs of expecting more of what the world can understand. Am I making things too deep again? Haha, I guess that’s why I wrote a whole chapter about whether Cortana would pass the Turing Test 10+ years ago.

Here’re some links:

• A PDF of the Chapter: Halo, AI, and Believable Experiences: Would Cortana Pass the Turing Test?

• A blogpost I wrote about the context where I was back when that chapter was published in 2011.

• If you are interested in checking out the other chapters of: Halo and Philosophy: Intellect Evolved, it’s still available on Amazon.

• Here’s another blogpost about the Eliza Effect, written in 2009.