Another silly one, this month; it’s summer, it’s hot and time is short both for writing and reading. Even computer scientists are allowed time off …
OK then …
“To be, or not to be, that is the question” [Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1; William Shakespeare]
So, if that’s the question, what’s the answer? Let’s see if we can use a bit of Computer Science logic to give the poor prince a hand …
So, a computer has passed the ‘Turing Test’ for ‘intelligence’, has it? No, not really; in fact, no, not at all. But, boy, has it stirred up some public interest in the subject? That alone has to be good. More than that, it’s got senior computer scientists debating anew about how the test should be implemented … and even what it actually means.
The usual bite-sized version of the Turing Test (TT) for public consumption is this … Put a human in one room, in communication with both another human and a computer in a different room. In modern terms, the communication would take the form of something like a text message conversation with each. If the first human couldn’t say which of the second human or the computer was which (or got it wrong), then that would make the computer intelligent. Last week, there was widespread coverage in the press that a computer – well a computer program – had passed the test.
Well, it’s hard to know where to begin with what’s wrong with this … Continue reading
Universities are being increasingly forced to take ‘league tables’ seriously and the next month or so will see a variety of versions appear but how useful really are they?
Movement up and down the ‘Complete University Guide’ league table for Computer Science Continue reading
Two years ago, Wales was leading the way in the Computing revolution in schools. Now it’s falling behind the rest of the UK. What happened?
2012 was an exciting year to be involved in schools education in the UK, with Wales being no exception. By 2013, the Welsh ICT Steering Group had reported to the Welsh Government with an ambitious set of proposals, at the heart of which was the bold assertion that:
“Computing should be integrated into the curriculum as the fourth science, served by a mandatory Programme of Study, and receive the same status as the other three sciences”
Now, in 2014, the situation appears to be one of chaotic stagnation. And, if that combination appears oxymoronic, just take a look …
Turing's Radiator 