{"id":855,"date":"2012-04-14T11:32:13","date_gmt":"2012-04-14T10:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrisspeed.net\/?p=855"},"modified":"2012-04-14T11:32:13","modified_gmt":"2012-04-14T10:32:13","slug":"twittest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chrisspeed.net\/?p=855","title":{"rendered":"Twittest"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.twittest.org<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"The Twittest is a playful project for students about intelligence based on the use of the social network application Twitter and making reference to Alan Turing’s \u2018Turing Test\u2019. The competition, was developed by ourselves at the University of Edinburgh as part of the Edinburgh International Science Festival, and was created to mark the 100th birthday of Turing (see here<\/a> for more details), who is widely regarded as the forefather of modern computing.<\/p>\n

The format is based on the Turing Test, which the scientist devised to show whether a computer can show sufficient intelligence to be mistaken for a human. It took this connection as a starting point for the project in the context of school education and the cultures of young people \u2013 testing how intelligence is perceived, transmitted and institutionalised in such contexts.<\/p>\n

Twittest background<\/strong><\/p>\n

A characteristic of social networking systems such as Facebook or Twitter is the opportunity to post status updates, or tweets. These short \u2018messages\u2019 that are described by some as \u2018micro-blogs\u2019, are limited in length to 420 characters in Facebook and even less (140 characters) in Twitter. Posted to no-one in particular, and only visible to people in your network, the statements are an unusual form of communication because their do not demand a reply. Often posted just to indicate that someone is still present in a network, the short updates sometimes attract brief conversations, but are generally short statements about people\u2019s activities and observations. These updates now constitute the primary activity of many social network platforms, but despite not actually constituting a discourse, they have become a habitual part of how young people sustain contact with each other.<\/p>\n

Alan Turing\u2019s 1950 paper \u2018Computing Machinery And Intelligence\u2019 introduced a twist in an established game of human imitation to see if an interrogator could spot whether someone was a person or computer whilst observing text-based communication between two participants. If someone could not reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the \u2018Turing test\u2019. The test relied upon a model of interpersonal communication that involved the sustaining of dialogue to demonstrate whether the subjects, and in particular computers could think (Turing’s paper on the imitation game:\u00a0http:\/\/www.loebner.net\/Prizef\/TuringArticle.html<\/a>). If the Turing test asks whether machines can think, the project responds with artificial stupidity.<\/p>\n

If one aspect of contemporary human communication is not based upon the need to hear a reply, the Twittest project asks how might the Turing Test be revisited in light of the \u2018one-way\u2019 form of micro-blogging that is used to sustain communication between friends? How can you tell whether you are receiving texts from a person or machine, from an intelligent machine or twit? If Twitter asks \u2018what are you doing?\u2019, the project asks: \u2018what are you thinking, and are you thinking at all?\u2019<\/p>\n

Twittest project<\/strong><\/p>\n

As young people become familiar with posting status updates as a mode of communication, it seemed to us that it would be interesting to use it to inform a revised Turing Test that mixed bots, up with students, with celebrities and teachers, to provide an exploration of the levels of knowledge that are imparted in this way. Would anybody be able to sort out who was human based upon the absurdity of much communication? How would the power relations involved be understood when no one could be sure of the authority or authenticity of communication? How would you know whether the information was genuine or intelligent, whether your teacher was a machine?<\/p>\n

\"\"The Twittest interface mimicked Twitter and users were able to post tweets using one of the following identities: student, teacher, celebrity and bot. The system knew who users really were, but it was for the audience to guess who they thought was the originator of the tweet. A scoring system provided a gaming dimension and during the 7 day game in March the project received:<\/p>\n