Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatbot Eugene Goostman "passing the Turing test" - <AUTHOR> http://www.kurzweilai.net/response-by-ray-kurzweil-to-the-announcement-of-chatbot-eugene-goostman-passing-the-turing-test <comment><USER2> This is a nicely written and clear explanation of why the announcement by the University of Reading is bullshit. In fact, it is was more than they deserve. Way more.

I would suggest shunning them is the right response.

The University of Reading is, of course, the august institution behind:

[http://blog.jgc.org/2010/05/inside-rfid- virus.html](http://blog.jgc.org/2010/05/inside-rfid-virus.html)

[http://blog.jgc.org/2006/12/midas-number-or-why-divide-by- ze...](http://blog.jgc.org/2006/12/midas-number-or-why-divide-by-zero.html)

<comment><USER3> There's not much wrong with the University of Reading.

Kevin Warwick, on the other hand is a complex character who errs on the side of hype and unjustified self-publicity much too often. He is not taken very seriously in academic AI and robotics, except when he causes a collective face-palm with claims like this.

The press release people at Reading, or pretty much anywhere else, do not have the skills to assess whether their professor is begin daft or not.

<comment><USER4> You might say he is the Ken Rockwell of Computer Science.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, if only Ken Rockwell was not entirely sane, and said things that make sense for the market segment he refers too.

If anything, it's the pixel-peepers and the "I need a bigger lens" that are non-scientific nuts (essentially gear fashion victims, who would buy a $10,000 Leica when a $1000 Nikon can give the same results).

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure that in the hands of a sufficiently skilled photographer, that Leica does produce a better picture. The quality of the sensor is objectively better.

<comment><USER5> > _The quality of the sensor is objectively better._

Actually it's not. For one, Leica doesn't make their own sensors. Second, they have a very hard time with their processor software (in camera). The first model they put out a few years ago had awful color rendition and strange casts. And not that great performance in low light either. And I mean compared to the models of the era then. At least, IIRC, they smartly removed the antialias filter, or put a very soft one, which gave them a more sharpness, but that was mostly it. Nothing making the camera (M8) worthy being sold for multi-thousand dollars sans lens.

What made Leica legendary (back in the day) was their mechanical construction capabilities in the year of analogue cameras this mattered. In the era of digital they cannot compete with a behemoth like Canon making their own sensors, processors and firmware to drive them. Or even Nikon.

Of course they still make good lenses. But that's just part of the story -- and they are not that better than comparable in price high ends models from other brands.

So, no, a "sufficiently skilled photographer" wouldn't produce a better picture with the Leica. It's an inferior product in every way except mechanical construction (and re-sale value). Plus it's a rangefinder -- the precise focus capability of a DSLR is much better.

In fact most accomplished photographers today don't shoot Leica's. They did that back in the day for reporting (like Bresson or Capa). Today they use either some Canon high end (D)SLR or some medium format (if they want to signal "professional").

<comment><USER6> I know Leica doesn't make their own sensor. The company I work for made it (for the M). It is a pretty damn good sensor. Don't know enough about photography to judge the rest :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The answers Ray got back are borderline embarrassing. They're designed to deflect the question by ignoring the request and asking another unrelated question or deflecting by humor. These are common ploys in faking AI chat. Hell, what 13 yo calls himself a "little boy?" I was in 8th grade at 13 and looking forward to high school. I can't imagine calling myself a "little boy" at an age when some of my peers were sexually active.

I think this proves that the Turing Test is more or less crap. Humans, who are easily fooled/socially engineered, can't just decide that "this is AI," like its some kind of American Idol-like contest. There should be some rational metric at work here. A bunch of different tests and human judgement as only one part of the testing suite.

Look at what IBM has been doing with Watson. It may never pass this test, but its probably the closest we have to AI (generalist self-learning system). Maybe this event will be the excuse we finally need to lay Turing's test to bed, permanently.

<comment><USER8> Indeed embarrassing. Actually, I can't believe that they called this chat-bot in any way intelligent. On top of that, this level of chat is the same since 90s, how come nothing has changed? And anyway, text chatting is/will never be a measure of intelligence, the Turing test in this form should never be considered.

You really need to live 13 years as a boy to be able to answer as one.

<comment><USER9> I've seen _better_ in the 90's.

<comment><USER8> ELIZA comes from the top of my head, and did impress me at that time ( '94 ? ). Lately I found out it had a psychologist side in it, as per original design and the answering with a question.

Better? Maybe, maybe not. But after 20 years, to show no real progress at all? Baffling.

<comment><USER10> ELIZA is from _1966_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> First thing I've read by Kurzweil that didn't make me rage. I fully expected him to chalk this up as more evidence that the singularity is well on schedule or he's going to win Long Bet #1. Glad to hear him being critical:

>I chatted with the chatbot Eugene Goostman, and was not impressed. Eugene does not keep track of the conversation, repeats himself word for word, and often responds with typical chatbot non sequiturs.

<comment><USER12> I think your assumptions are somewhat unfair. Despite his bold and often fanciful predictions, he's a really smart guy with a history of impressive technological contributions. He's gotten a bad reputation in recent years for his outspoken certainty in the impending singularity (which, as seen in _Transcendent Man_ , is somewhat tragically driven by the loss of his father and the hope of somehow reanimating his father's persona through technology), but he hasn't "lost it" or anything. I fully expected him to be critical of this test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I already created a bot that would pass the Turing Test, according to these specifications anyway:

<Josiah, an 8 month old from Nashua, has entered the room>

S: Hi Josiah, I'm Steven. What do you like to do?

J: <no response>

S: Josiah, are you there?

J: <no response for 4 minutes>

J: uhqtuhq a

S: Excuse me?

J: <no response>

<Steven has left the room>

<comment><USER14> Strong AI confirmed, alert the press.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Kurzweil's and Mitch Kapor's rules on how to judge a Turing Test are well thought out ( * 1), but I'm finding that it's actually biased against the computer (and therefore unfair to Kurzweil). There's a significant chance that a computer with a breathtaking performance will lose _by probability alone_.

Look at this rule: _The Computer will be deemed to have passed the "Turing Test Human Determination Test" if the Computer has fooled two or more of the three Human Judges into thinking that it is a human._

Suppose the Computer is absolutely _perfect_ its responses (i.e., it should pass the Turing Test). The judges know that they're speaking to 3 humans and 1 computer, so if the judges are chatting with 4 equally-good subjects, they'll decide that one of the four is a computer on a whim. There's a chance that Kurzweil will lose just by arbitrariness.

It's like being asked to sample 4 glasses of wine to pick the worst. Unbeknownst to you, all 4 glasses have the same wine. Even though they're equally good, you'll reject one glass by some arbitrary measure. Maybe you felt an itch on your neck while drinking from the second glass, so that one is the bad wine.

( * 1) [http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-wager-on-the-turing-test-the- rul...](http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-wager-on-the-turing-test-the-rules)

<comment><USER15> Can someone please help with the probability calculation?

3 judges and 4 participants

What's the probability that any 2 or all 3 judges will pick a particular participant ("the computer") out of 4 at random?

<comment><USER16> Suppose that the participants are all indistinguishable. Each judge has a 3/4 chance of "being fooled". Let p be the event that the computer is correctly determined, and let q be the event that the computer is not selected. We calculate (1/4p+3/4q)^3 = 1/64(p^3 +3p^2(3q) + 3p(3q)^2+(3q)^3) = 1/64 (p^3 + 9p^2q + 27pq^2 + 27q^3). The probability, then, that the computer is chosen by random chance is 10/64 or approximately 15%.

<comment><USER17> Which means in only 14 trials, there's a greater than 90% chance of passing the test. (Again, assuming the contestant is indistinguishable from the judges.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The whole thing sounded iffy to me from the first second I heard about it, despite the fact that most of the tech media was going ga-ga over it. I mean, the AI being only a teenage Hungarian boy (meaning the judges should've _expected_ it to be "less intelligent than a normal native adult")...and only fooling 1/3 of the judges? That sounds like a whole lot of _cheating_ to declare that it "passed" the Turing test.

<comment><USER19> Yeah after reading Ray's conversation with the bot, I was surprised that 30% of the judges were fooled. I guess maybe they were also 13 years old and had English as a second language.

<comment><USER20> I will explain this mystery to you: they simply did not ask any probing questions like that. This is also called the ELIZA effect

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA_effect)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've had more believable conversations with CleverBot. It's hard to believe this hoax has gone as far as it has.

<comment><USER22> Cleverbot is all non-sequiturs. Nothing ever remotely makes sense.

<comment><USER23> It is possible to get it into a chain of counting though. Eg user says four, it says five, user says 6, it says seven, and that goes on for a while.

(edit:So that's not completely non sequitur things)

I don't think I've ever seen a chatbot on a web page that can do addition. (unless one counts wolfram|alpha: it does respond to greetings after all.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I could design chat bot that passes itself off as a human using speech to text.

      Interrogator: "Hello, how old are you?"
      Bot: "I'm 2 and a half."
      I: What is your name?
      B: Keegan
      I: I live in the Capital of the United States.
      B: Why?
      I: Because there was a job open and I needed one.
      B: Why?
      I: Because I need money in order to live.
      B: Why?
      I: You know, to buy groceries and stuff.
      B: Why?
      I: What do you mean?
      B: I like butterflies!
      I: Oh, really?
      B: Yeah, do you know butterflies come from cappilars?
      I: Yeah, I knew that.
      B: Do you like butterflies?
      I: I guess so.
      B: Why?
      I: They look nice I guess.
      B: Why?
      I: I don't think you're a person, this is shit.
      B: SHIT!
      I: What?
      B: SHIT!
      I: Stop saying that.
      B: SHIT SHIT SHIT hehehe!
      I: Oh God damn it what did I do?
      B: SHIT SHIT GOD DAMN SHIT HEHEHE!
      I: I gotta go.
      B: OK, bye!
      B: SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!

I take issue with the example given in the article because nobody's going to reply with 2 sentences for every simple question. Likewise, it's bad with memory and reasoning. It should have had some trouble when he said he lived in the capital of the US and the capital of the country that built the great wall, but then again it was obvious that it didn't remember where he lived at all.

At least in my example a 2 year old doesn't care what you're saying. It's able to learn better than the other example, but still not a lot is expected.

I bet there's some cognitive age level that we're able to emulate well enough to pass off as human, at least in terms of verbal communication. I think it would be useful if we were better able to measure that, and raise that level slowly. Maybe we actually can impersonate a 2 year old well, then what about a 3 year old? 4 year old? Where do we get hung up?

If we can't get a 2 year old's cognitive processes down without a doubt, we should build on that first instead of trying to do something more complex without an understanding of how to make the foundations of that intelligence work.

</comment><comment><USER25> Warwick is just an attention seeking fruitcake, and an utter embarrassment to the entire British computing ecosystem. This isn't some new revelation either. Quite why he's tolerated at all is beyond me.

Kurzweil is being too kind.

<comment><USER3> More than tolerated:

[http://www.kevinwarwick.com/achievements.htm](http://www.kevinwarwick.com/achievements.htm)

You can go a long way with the publicity, er, focus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Kurzweil is right to be unimpressed. This chatbot is actually less impressive than Racter which dates back to the early 80s (and used similar and cleverer distraction tactics such as going off on tangents and basically being completely nuts).

<comment><USER27> I've had better bots nagging me to signup to cam sites on MSN/ICQ... Unimpressed is putting it lightly ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> _' Apparently, we have now entered the era of premature announcements of a computer having passed Turing's eponymous test'_

What this Eugene stuff has made me realize is that we need milestones around the Turing test in the pop-science lexicon, rather than just a pass fail. Kurzweil's right, this bot isn't a pass in anything like the spirit of the test. But, getting attention is a good thing. It encourages potential students and engages the public.

Maybe there could be a few variants of the test based on bot age, bot native language, judge age, judge proficiency, etc. These could be scored these by the percentage of judges fooled.

That way a new bot could break a previous record on one or more variant of the test. PR fodder. Legitimate accolades. The headlines could mean something. Fewer cranky nerds.

Kurzweil could do promote this.

<comment><USER9> Getting attention like this is a _bad_ thing. AI has been oversold for decades and stunts like this make real AI efforts look bad. That's one of the reasons I presume Kurzweil is very sharp to denounce this, the last thing we need is a re-run of the AI winter courtesy of some University hot for some attention.

<comment><USER28> Let me try to phrase that differently. I'm not trying to legitimize bad stunts. I'm suggesting giving them a legitimate way of getting that PR instead.

Researchers, hobbyists and porn sellers working on chatbots. The definition of success is the Turing test. To give themselves goals and brag about those goals in media, they enter Turing test contests and try to get a "passing" score relatively to arbitrary definitions of pass.

Some will inevitably get overenthusiastic about the achievements. It will go int the press and that's where overpraising wolf crying comes from.

I propose to fixe this by giving contestants a legitimate target to aim for. Something that naturally produces PR fodder in 256 characters. "New Chatbot achieves 38% on the Eugene-13 Turing Test." That could mean something real and honest.

Some variants of the test are complete BS. Some are not. They may not be an indication of consciousness (that's what the one we've got is for) but beating our previous best does represent a legitimate milestone.

A lot of them could be interesting. Some variants of the test could focus on tasks/scenarios. For example, an AI receptionist. Others (maybe Eugene-13) could be a handicap version to the real Turing test.

<comment><USER9> As long as the butchers get to validate their own meat this won't happen. Nobody in the run for PR will allow you to rain on their parade with a 'not good enough'. Essentially what happened here is that the grades were lowered until there was a pass. If you set up shop next door and you refuse to lower the grades until there is a pass they'll go elsewhere, and claim victory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm surprised by the impact of Eugene. After trying the web interface I felt like myself could have written a similar chatter bot that of course would have been ignored by everyone, with good reason.

<comment><USER30> Yep. I've seen IRC bots in 2004 with similar levels of 'intelligence'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think most people misunderstand the intent of Turing's paper in which he describes his eponymous test. I agree with Chomsky's reading, which he laid out in "Language & Thought":

"There is a great deal of often heated debate about these matters in the literature of the cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of mind, but it is hard to see that any serious question has been posed. The question of whether a computer is playing chess, or doing long division, or translating Chinese, is like the question of whether robots can murder or airplanes can fly -- or people; after all, the "flight" of the Olympic long jump champion is only an order of magnitude short of that of the chicken champion (so I'm told). These are questions of decision, not fact; decision as to whether to adopt a certain metaphoric extension of common usage.

There is no answer to the question whether airplanes really fly (though perhaps not space shuttles). Fooling people into mistaking a submarine for a whale doesn't show that submarines really swim; nor does it fail to establish the fact. There is no fact, no meaningful question to be answered, as all agree, in this case. The same is true of computer programs, as Turing took pains to make clear in the 1950 paper that is regularly invoked in these discussions. Here he pointed out that the question whether machines think "may be too meaningless to deserve discussion," being a question of decision, not fact, though he speculated that in 50 years, usage may have "altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted" \-- as in the case of airplanes flying (in English, at least), but not submarines swimming. Such alteration of usage amounts to the replacement of one lexical item by another one with somewhat different properties. There is no empirical question as to whether this is the right or wrong decision.

In this regard, there has been serious regression since the first cognitive revolution, in my opinion. Superficially, reliance on the Turing test is reminiscent of the Cartesian approach to the existence of other minds. But the comparison is misleading. The Cartesian experiments were something like a litmus test for acidity: they sought to determine whether an object has a certain property, in this case, possession of mind, one aspect of the world. But that is not true of the artificial intelligence debate.

Another superficial similarity is the interest in simulation of behavior, again only apparent, I think. As I mentioned earlier, the first cognitive revolution was stimulated by the achievements of automata, much as today, and complex devices were constructed to simulate real objects and their functioning: the digestion of a duck, a flying bird, and so on. But the purpose was not to determine whether machines can digest or fly. Jacques de Vaucanson, the great artificer of the period, was concerned to understand the animate systems he was modeling; he constructed mechanical devices in order to formulate and validate theories of his animate models, not to satisfy some performance criterion."

[http://www.chomsky.info/books/prospects01.htm](http://www.chomsky.info/books/prospects01.htm)

<comment><USER30> >Fooling people into mistaking a submarine for a whale doesn't show that submarines really swim

Why not? Presumably part of the act of fooling would involve 'swimming' submarines.

I think passing a __strong__ Turing test actually does say something about our brains, cognition, and consciousness. And by a 'strong Turing test', I don't mean dinky 5 minute tests with a "Ukrainian boy". Imagine you carry on a 20 year relationship with a computer pen-pal, having in-depth discussions about every-day things from movies, to music, to sports to family and relationships. Imagine such a computer program fooling every human it interacts with for decades at a time, I think that would say something about ourselves and I think it would render the question of consciousness meaningless. If it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and you can't tell the difference between it and a duck, it's a duck.

Another problem is that philosophers and even regular people tend to relish in ambiguity when it comes to certain ideas and concepts, even trying to elevate them to supernatural levels. Things like free will, love, or consciousness are apparently outside of the natural world, and not subject to natural laws. I think that's wrong. I think the answer is much simpler and much more humbling than we are willing to admit.

<comment><USER32> There are a few problems with this line of reasoning.

First, that there is an implicit assumption about how cognition and consciousness are defined, but there is no real definition.

Following the example, it's not defined what a duck is, and "philosophers" actually don't try to elevate the question - they try to find answers to it.

While a "strong" test for example would look appealing, the problem is that there is no real model of weakness/strenght, and while a human would pass all the possible models of humanity, a computer would surely pass only the ones it's programmed for.

Another thing is that in order for a computer to truly mimic a human, that is, to fool people for 20 years about movies/music/sports/family/relationships, but also other abstract experiences, the computer would need to experience them, and especially, elaborate them in a human way.

Which is again, very "open", and it's the core problem.

Even excluding the openness problem, the Turing test in the way it's posed, looks to me as the photorealism problem. You can achieve it in a static picture, but once you freely move in a 3D world, you see the flaws that show that what you're experiencing in reality is a limited set of limited algorithms, which are used to workaround hard problems (workaround is the key).

I think exactly the same arguments stand, that is, in order to mimic a human in such a high level of faithfulness, very hard problems would need to be solved, not just worked around.

<comment><USER30> >First, that there is an implicit assumption about how cognition and consciousness are defined, but there is no real definition.

And yet volumes are written on the topic, and you have no trouble dismissing this particular approach as not really answering "consciousness". Well what do you mean exactly then?

>and while a human would pass all the possible models of humanity, a computer would surely pass only the ones it's programmed for.

I don't agree with either the first nor the second assumption a priori. Would a schizophrenic, or autistic or infant brain pass "all the possible models of humanity". And second, why would a computer pass only the models it was programmed for?! We know that isn't true with today's software and today's AI. IBM's Watson wasn't programmed with every single fact it used to win Jeopardy, nor is any rudimentary video game AI programmed with a specific set of behaviors that it executes regardless of player actions. If you want to go deeper, I can also claim the human brain itself was shaped by natural selection for a finite and very specific set of tasks, and the neural machinery is as deterministic as software since both are subject to the fundamental laws. So tell me why can't software simulate human behaviour again?

>Another thing is that in order for a computer to truly mimic a human, that is, to fool people for 20 years about movies/music/sports/family/relationships, but also other abstract experiences, the computer would need to experience them

No necessarily. It can lie. Or it can live them by ingesting huge amounts of information from digital content, or maybe it was trained in a lab or adopted by a family and raised like a human. Whatever.

> and especially, elaborate them in a human way.

Define "human way", because that's the entire point. I don't see intrinsically why such a computer program could not be built. What's so special about the "human way".

>You can achieve it in a static picture, but once you freely move in a 3D world, you see the flaws that show that what you're experiencing in reality is a limited set of limited algorithms, which are used to workaround hard problems

And you base this on what? I mean you're just asserting it can't be done, why? Because human brains are powered by magic!?

>I think exactly the same arguments stand, that is, in order to mimic a human in such a high level of faithfulness, very hard problems would need to be solved, not just worked around.

I'm not sure what the difference is between solving problems and merely working around them, in your context. But yes, we're not there yet, obviously. I think the Turing test is actually deeper than most people give it credit to be. And you illustrate this perfectly. All your objections are hand-wavy appeals to some vague notions of the "human way".

<comment><USER33> In any case, neither of you have fooled me yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > In 2002 I negotiated the rules for a Turing test wager with Mitch Kapor on > the Long Now website. The question underlying our twenty-thousand-dollar > bet... was, "Will the Turing test be passed by a machine by 2029?" I said > yes, and Kapor said no. It took us months of dialogue to arrive at the > intricate rules to implement our wager.

If this was a sci-fi short, the twist would be "Ray Kurweil" admitting at the end of these negotiations that he was a bot that had borrowed the futurist's email address.

</comment><comment><USER35> The article's title is "Response by Ray Kurzweil to _the announcement of_ chatbot Eugene Goostman passing the Turing test". Pretty critical distinction between that and reacting to it actually _passing_ a Turing test. If the HN title is going to be changed for brevity, then it should probably be changed to something like 'Response by Ray Kurzweil to chatpot Eugene Goostman "passing the Turing test"', or something else that conveys the actual sentiment of the post (which is that this chatbot isn't anything special and isn't close to being able to pass any real Turing test).

</comment><comment><USER36> When are they going to start considering the other side of the Turing test - if a robot passes - a human fails it.

</comment><comment><USER37> Kudos to Kurzweil for calling them out. That chatbot doesn't look especially sophisticated.

<comment><USER38> > I don't think you don't think that I don't think you don't need to change > your opinions. Where do you came from, by the way? Could you tell me about > the place where you live?

Actual quote from EG

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Between this and Nobel Peace Prize I notice that one after another, the things that used to have some meaning are being bastardized by people looking for attention. Those people are destroying important cultural symbols for five minutes of fame.

</comment><comment><USER40> As I've written chat bots before this is standard stuff that all bots do:

1\. regex the input and spit back canned responses: Question: I live in the |||<<capital of the United States>>|||. Do you know where that is? Eugene: Every nerd knows that the |||<<capital of The United States is Washington>>|||.

2\. if you get confused spit back out something from the chat history Question I live in the capital of the country that put a man on the moon. Eugene:: Well, if you want it, the |||<<capital of The United States is Washington>>||.

3\. if you haven't been able to find a regex pattern match in a while try to derail the conversation. Question: How old were you when you started to wear glasses? Eugene: No I was not! How can you think so?! If I'm not mistaken – |||<<you still didn't tell me where you live>>||. OR it's a secret?:-)

In fact this bot is pretty bad. You can tell from the output that it couldn't pattern match virtually any of the inputs and responses 3,7-10 are an attempt to change the topic of the conversation. Responses 4,5 are pattern match misses that are regurgitating from the chat history. Only 1,2,4 are response matches from the parsing engine.

</comment><comment><USER41> Turing test and all it's connotative baggage aside, the first chatbot that will impress me is the one where I can't for the life of me figure out how it's creating the responses it is.

"Eugene", I can imagine creating when I was 12.

<comment><USER42> Absolutely. Responses like Eugene's seem straight out of the "Eliza" program I typed into my home computer (out of a magazine) in the mid 1980s. If Eugene is the new state of the art, as some have claimed, it doesn't seem that there has been any progress at all in the last 30 years.

Perhaps next year the test will be won by Ham Hamuelson, an AI persona who managed to convince the judges that he was a talking ham sandwich. I guess we can't completely rule that out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> In regards to his prediction that a machine will pass the Turing test by 2029 Ray writes: "Today, my prediction appears to be median view. So, I am gratified that a growing group of people now think that I am being too conservative."

Great stuff!

</comment><comment><USER44> In thinking of this as a binary question (pass/fail) it feels like we're missing the point. As Kurzweil points out when quoting himself, "By the time there is a broad consensus that the Turing test has been passed, the actual threshold will have long since been achieved."

What we need is more of a Turing "score". The design would be a website (say) where each human participant will be presented with both "defend your humanity" challenges (as a subject) or "judge other's humanity". For the former, you'll try to convince an interviewer that you are human; for the latter, you'll be presented with two subjects, and asked to identify which is human (possibly with a "both human" or "both robots" option).

Based on this, individuals will get an ELO score (like chess) on how often they "win" the contest as a subject, that is, are identified as human (or as "more likely to be human than their opponent").

Computer programs will participate as subjects; the requirement will be that the behavior is deterministic given a random seed presented (to them only) at the beginning of the conversation,is to prevent cheating and allow reproducibility.

On an orthogonal level, participants acting as judges could be scored on how often they are correct in making the identification; and there's no reason that computer programs could not compete on this side as well. And this could even feed back into the score for humanity; you get more credit for fooling a good judge than fooling a bad judge, etc.

</comment><comment><USER45> We also should specify the intelligence of the human...

Maybe one-day there'll be a test where we have to convince a super intelligent sentient machine that we can be more than just human...

</comment><comment><USER46> The chatbot Eugene Goostman did not pass Ray Kurzweil's version of the Turing Test. It passed the Turing Test as set up by the organizers.

Turing never even mentioned the criteria that participants should be aware that they are possibly talking to a computer. This single criteria should not matter for intelligence IMO, because the whole point of the test was to abstract away the appearance. The other way around: a chatbot doesn't pass the test if a participant mistakes a human for a machine.

People fail the Turing Test all the time when unaware of chat scripts. Even some upvoted Hackernews comments may have been artificially generated without being detected as such.

The best way for me to detect if something is up, is to ask the chatbot about Alan Turing, 42 and the Turing Test. Then to curse at it. Most chatbot makers can't resist adding lines specifically for these questions, or they show feigned annoyance that is easy to pick up on. I got Goostman to admit that he was a Turing Test and then we talked about bots some more. Eugene ended with:

 _I call all these chatter-bots "chatter-nuts" due to their extremely high intelligence. I hope you recognize irony._

Full conversation here: [http://pastebin.com/Wf4uiCRf](http://pastebin.com/Wf4uiCRf)

<comment><USER47> > Turing never even mentioned the criteria that participants should be aware > that they are possibly talking to a computer.

What? Here's what he said. It seems pretty clear that this version of the game involves one human interrogator, one human and one computer, and the interrogator has to decide which is human and which isn't.

> The new form of the problem can be described in terms of a game which we > call the 'imitation game." It is played with three people, a man (A), a > woman (B), and an interrogator (C) who may be of either sex. The > interrogator stays in a room apart front the other two. The object of the > game for the interrogator is to determine which of the other two is the man > and which is the woman. He knows them by labels X and Y, and at the end of > the game he says either "X is A and Y is B" or "X is B and Y is A." The > interrogator is allowed to put questions to A and B thus:

> C: Will X please tell me the length of his or her hair?

> Now suppose X is actually A, then A must answer. It is A's object in the > game to try and cause C to make the wrong identification. His answer might > therefore be:

> "My hair is shingled, and the longest strands are about nine inches long."

> In order that tones of voice may not help the interrogator the answers > should be written, or better still, typewritten. The ideal arrangement is to > have a teleprinter communicating between the two rooms. Alternatively the > question and answers can be repeated by an intermediary. The object of the > game for the third player (B) is to help the interrogator. The best strategy > for her is probably to give truthful answers. She can add such things as "I > am the woman, don't listen to him!" to her answers, but it will avail > nothing as the man can make similar remarks.

> We now ask the question, "What will happen when a machine takes the part of > A in this game?" Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game > is played like this as he does when the game is played between a man and a > woman? These questions replace our original, "Can machines think?"

<comment><USER46> The specifics of the Turing Test have been debated for decades. It is clear that different versions and interpretations exist, especially now we have moved on from behaviorism that was popular during the time Turing wrote the paper.

From your quotes it only says that player A is to be replaced with a machine, not that player C is to be made aware of this replacement. I do agree that that is the popular interpretation, but it isn't written down, leading to this ambiguity.

>the interrogator has to decide which is human and which isn't.

The interrogator has to decide which is female and which is male. Replace the female or male with a computer, not making the interrogator aware of this and see if the interrogator is wrong as often as before.

Kurzweil questions this bot, as if it was a bot. He is aware that he is talking to a bot, and doesn't even have to choose between A or B.

Kurzweil's line of questioning is not fair or normal or productive communication even if it was between two humans. A 13- year-old boy would have told Kurzweil to bugger off when tasked to answer 2+2 or wouldn't have responded at all.

Repeat questions like that in a random chatroom and people will think that _you_ are the chatbot.

<comment><USER48> > Kurzweil's line of questioning is not fair or normal or productive > communication even if it was between two humans. A 13- year-old boy would > have told Kurzweil to bugger off when tasked to answer 2+2 or wouldn't have > responded at all.

That seems to make it a very good way to distinguish humans from bots even if it isn't "fair or normal or productive communication" \-- if _humans_ could detect that a line of questioning isn't "fair or normal or productive communication" and cut it off, and the chatbot can't, that would seem to be a manner in which a chatbot is _readily distinguishable from a human by way of interaction_.

And, I would argue, recognizing abusive, unproductive lines of inquiry and either diverting them early or cutting them off completely is an important part of human communication.

<comment><USER46> Absolutely! This sword cuts both ways. Our bots are stuck in Searle's Chinese room, performing silly input-output matching tricks without understanding language on a deep human level.

An intelligent bot would indeed recognize unproductive lines of inquiry and should act accordingly. It would be more realistic if a bot answered that it has gotten tired of answering stupid questions.

Yet: If the Turing Test was made to avoid discrimination based on appearance, then applying the Turing Test while starting out with a tricky biased (unfair, unnatural, unproductive) line of questioning in the hopes of tripping up the machine... this doesn't seem in the spirit of the Test. The chatbots are at least polite enough to try to answer. Who not extend them the same courtesy as you would other humans, at least till you "figure" out that it may be a bot?

Again: It doesn't say in the paper that the interrogator is to be made aware that player A is now a machine. The interrogator will continue its line of questioning trying to distinguish between male and female. This line of questioning should be far saner, and easier for bots to interpret and play along with. By starting out like Kurzweil he places the Test on the shoulders of the bot: The bot has to find out if it is talking to a sane human or someone spouting gibberish. Kurzweil becomes Eugene's Turing Test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Ben Shneiderman wrote an interesting essay entitled "Beyond Intelligent Machines: Designing Predictable and Controllable User Interfaces", that explained why he is strongly opposed to suggesting that computers are 'intelligent' or 'smart', and suggested better approaches to human computer interaction.

[https://code.google.com/p/micropolis/source/browse/trunk/mic...](https://code.google.com/p/micropolis/source/browse/trunk/micropolis- activity/src/notes/Beyond-Intelligent-Machines)

He wrote that back in 1992, and I think it's still very relevant now.

Limits to Imagination

I think we should have much greater ambition than to make a computer behave like an intelligent butler or other human agent. Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), hypertext/hypermedia, multi-media, information visualization, and virtual realities are powerful technologies that enable human users to accomplish tasks that no human has ever done. If we describe computers in human terms then we run the risk of limiting our ambition and creativity in the design of future computer capabilities.

</comment><comment><USER50> Can anyone clarify this for me?

> _Professor Warwick claims that the test was "unrestricted." However, having > the chatbot claim to be a 13-year-old child, and one for whom English is not > a first language, is effectively a restriction._

Kurzweil seems to say that the bot lying is a restriction, but the Kapor- Kurzweil Turing Test Session rules explicitly allow the bot to lie about who they are[1]:

> _Neither the Turing Test Human Foils nor the Computer are required to tell > the truth about their histories or other matters. All of the candidates are > allowed to respond with fictional histories._

I suppose he's just addressing Professor Warwick's claim. Nevertheless this point doesn't seem to make any difference to what Kurzweil would consider a passing bot and the casual reader is baited into saying "The bot failed because it lied it's history."

[1]: [http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-wager-on-the-turing-test-the- rul...](http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-wager-on-the-turing-test-the-rules)

<comment><USER51> > _Kurzweil seems to say that the bot lying is a restriction_

I think he means that placing it in a limited domain of humanity, specifically one that would be expected to make lots of basic errors, is a restriction, since it makes things much easier on the bot.

What really gets me is that, on top of that, they arbitrarily declared that success was a 30% pass rate instead of 50%. The rest of it is bad enough, but how on earth did anyone think that was acceptable?

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> the Turing test is to fool into "believing it is a person". In this case the judges were fooled into "believing it is an Ukranian 13 years boy" (with development disability probably). I think "a person" in the test means at least average IQ and average education/knowledge volume.

</comment><comment><USER53> It's basically a software automaton, not an AI in any way.

</comment><comment><USER54> It's quite interesting to read Turing's original article (A. M. Turing (1950) Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Mind). I don't think he would have been that impressed by Prof Warwick's claims.

[http://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/471/papers/turing.pdf](http://www.csee.umbc.edu/courses/471/papers/turing.pdf)

In fact if you read it, the whole claim that you can call more than 30% of the judges getting a test wrong one time 'passing the Turing test' is rather contrary to what Turing actually was saying.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm pretty sure I'd be able to detect almost any bot that tries to pass a Turing test. They always seem to try to answer every question. What if you did something like this in rapid succession...

Me: hey Me: hola! Me: que pasa? Me: 'sup?

If the bot/person on the other end tried to respond exactly 4 times that would be a very strong indication that something's amiss. And most likely they would trip up on the slang term at the end.

</comment><comment><USER56> Wow, did they put any work into that thing at all or just hook up the default chat bots we've had for a decade? It would be pretty trivial to just have it keep track of what it said and never repeat exactly, never ask where someone lives after a location has been mentioned in any way, not call itself a little boy and use correct punctuation, etc..

</comment><comment><USER57> Good on Kurzweil for calling out a self-aggrandizing researcher at U. of Reading. the Goostman bot is pretty poor as far as chat bots go. utterly typical in capabilities (below average if you ask me) for this type of bot, and utterly unconvincing to non-naive judges.

</comment><comment><USER58> I notice that in his conversation with the chatbot, Mr Kurzweil himself fails to meet his own criteria for the Turing test. Shouldn't the machine expect the human not to behave like a machine and thus have a sensible conversation?

</comment><comment><USER59> until an AI can answer this: define _something abstract_ (e.g. emotion, intelligence). and be able to answer follow on questions without sounding like wikipedia, there is no chance the turing test will ever be passed.

</comment><comment><USER60> Until computers can think with the same levels of cognitive problem solving and emotional complexity that real people have, the turing test will not be passed. 2029 is an aggressive date.

</comment><comment><USER61> I found it very easy to tell it was a computer. Way too many emoticons for a real person.

It also seems to have problems with slang.

</comment><comment><USER62> After all the indiscriminate B.S. published in the media for this software "passing the Turing test", kudos to Ray Kurzweil for calling it like it is, despite he of all people has very serious reasons to be in the "I want to believe" team. Respect.</comment>


The bidet's revival - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/03/the-bidets-revival/555770/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Lack of bidets, like insistence on using fixed-head showers (and only fixed head) or putting light switch of a table lamp in the bulb holder, the most inconvenient location, is one of those things that I can never understand about Americans and that makes me think that may be there is something particularly brain-damaging in the water here. (insert sarcasm tags appropriately)

</comment><comment><USER3> If you had poop on your hands, you wouldn't just wipe it off, why do you only wipe/smear it if it's on your butt?

</comment><comment><USER4> I live in SEA where we use the 'toilet hose' mentioned in the article. If there is -one- thing I will bring back from living here, that's it.

<comment><AUTHOR> by SEA you mean south east Asia not Seattle right?

Yes that is a great thing I've been thinking of adding to my bathroom. Would you use just cold water or mix in hot water? I'd want figure out how to keep warm water ready without running the tap for too long. Cold water in winter is very cold and colder than I would want for this option.

<comment><USER4> Yea, south east asia.

It's all cold water, but I don't mind it. It's not ice cold though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure. Cold water there but the climate is warm. That works for me at home in the summer where I live but not winter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I notice the article fails to mention that the bidet is extremely diffused in Italy, where nearly every household has one

</comment><comment><USER6> People often ask, "But don't you end up with a wet butt?" The answer is, you use toilet paper (and less of it). Or if you're wealthy, your bidet includes a dryer.

<comment><USER5> I always used a small towel, it doesn't get dirty because if you clean your butt properly is just wet, and you wash once at week (like all the other towels)

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. The big thing is to let the towel dry well so that it doesn't get mildew.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How should you store passwords for authentication against 3rd partys? - <AUTHOR>

There's been a lot of stuff recently about hashing/salting/mashing/crushing/blending etc. passwords for authentication, but what if your application needs access to the plain text passwords. Say, it authenticates with a third party service that requires you to send a username and password to authenticate (I.E. authenticating with a users IMAP/SMTP email account or logging in to their Twitter).<p>Lets ignore the server/database part of this (though that is, of course, important). How should your application store these authentication details in a way where, if your server was compromised and the hackers had access to the database AND application code? <comment><USER2> If they have access to the application code then it's all over, since your application has to be able to decrypt the password back to plain text to use it.

The only way around this that I can see is just using a different method of authentication.</comment>


Some Smiling Faces in Online Customer Testimonials Are Stock Photos - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/health-startup-ubiome-used-stock-photos-for-website-testimonials-11558016423 <comment><AUTHOR> > Health startup uBiome said it would take down the testimonials; new code of > conduct calls for 'accurate and truthful statements'

This story comes only a few weeks after the SF-based health startup was raided by the FBI for suspected health insurance fraud.

The company's reviews on the Better Business Bureau website make for eye- opening reading: [https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san- francisco/profile/clinic/ubiom...](https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san- francisco/profile/clinic/ubiome-1116-878472)

</comment><comment><USER2> I think as much as the tech industry likes to think that Theranos was a one off problem, I am becoming increasingly suspicious that it's suspect it's not.

I don't think that you can just import the silicon valley mindset of "moving fast and breaking things" is sustainable for the health tech industry. If we want to make a real change (rather than a quick buck), there needs to be a stronger commitment on both the part of founders as well as their investors to throughly vet their approach.</comment>


Hack of Community Health Systems Affects 4.5M Patients - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/hack-of-community-health-systems-affects-4-5-million-patients/

<comment><AUTHOR> Another day another huge data breach. It's starting to feel like the A+B+C=X formula from Fight Club. If the cost of rigorous security is greater than the cost of the backlash from a breach, we don't do it.</comment>


Learning Curves: How Simple Splines Help Designers Model Complex 3D Forms - louis-paul https://99percentinvisible.org/article/learning-curves-how-simple-splines-help-designers-model-complex-3d-forms/ <comment><AUTHOR> > "Will this trend lead to haptic computer modeling interfaces, as tactile and > accessible as folding cardboard, molding clay, or bending a strip of wood?"

The most interesting point of the article for me.

I'd never really considered how intuitive/organic it can be for humans to create three dimensional shapes, and how few of these techniques are in use with 3d modelling (although I haven't had any experience with 3d modelling in the last 8 years)

Splines are so intuitive that I remember using them pretty effectively in elementary school. Can we get there with 3d modelling? What will that look like?

<comment><USER2> Subdivision modeling with polygons is essentially the same concept as splines (creating algorithmically smoothed shapes from a limited number of control points). It's been around since like the 70s -- the Catmull-Clark (yes, those Catmull and Clark) subdivision algorithm was invented in 1978! And it's been the main way of creating 3D models for film and games since at least the mid to late 90s -- ever since 3D workstations got powerful enough to display polygon models in realtime and games started using normal mapping. For films, the first major studio production to have made use of it seems to be Pixar's Geri's Game, and Gollum from the LOTR trilogy is sort of famously held to be the last character from a big movie to have been made with the older NURBS modeling tech.

It's extremely powerful for organic objects like creatures, but complex shapes and objects combining sharp and smooth features can run into problems with polygon flow and topology where the smoothing algorithm will run into problems. So I'm not saying it's the complete solution to what you're looking for.

In the last 10 years it's been increasing replaced by digital sculpting techniques, which make use of the same math but tend to get around the problems by throwing a lot more polygons at them. Bundled with a suitable UX there's probably a lot of potential for something elementary-school-level-yet- powerful in those. Feature-wise the most powerful at the moment is ZBrush, but the esoteric interface and workflow is probably preventing true mainstream adoption. Seriously -- you thought Blender was unintuitive? But ZBrush is used in like every game and animation studio, because nothing else comes close in terms of tools and performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Unless I'm mistaken, in boatbuilding spline weights are used to hold wooden battens on a drafting table. I've never heard of weights being hung from splines to get curves, either when lofting or building.

<comment><USER4> Spline weights (aka "Ducks") are for 2-D drafting. Here's a link that shows what they look like: [https://edsonmarine.com/products/boating- accessories/spline-...](https://edsonmarine.com/products/boating- accessories/spline-weights/)

And if you're curious to see what hung weights look like, check out Gaudí's Hanging Chain Models from 1889: [http://dataphys.org/list/gaudis-hanging- chain-models/](http://dataphys.org/list/gaudis-hanging-chain-models/)

<comment><USER3> I'm familiar with both of those. What I've not seen is hanging weights used to generate curves in boatbuilding, which is what's suggested in the article.</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Reconsidering Plan to Put Campus in New York City - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-reconsidering-plan-to-put-campus-in-new-york-11549668969 <comment><USER3> Discussed here 9 hours ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19116064](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19116064)

<comment><USER4> The WSJ story doesn't appear to add much of anything new, but it does at least constitute some additional reporting from outside the complexifier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> No New Yorker was happy about the subsidies, especially since it was x4 the amount of the one Amazon got in D.C. Subway is running at full capacity, and real estate prices are already high.

It was seen as a bad deal, and new yorkers just don't have a positive view of amazon. When your restaurant is already almost at full capacity, there is no need to lose money on a groupon campaign.

I don't think anybody would have complained if these subsidies were done somewhere upstate, where the jobs are truly needed.

<comment><USER6> Per this poll from 2 days ago, 69% of the public approves of HQ2 coming to NY, with support across all demographic groups.

[https://harrisx.com/2019/02/new-poll-shows-overwhelming- supp...](https://harrisx.com/2019/02/new-poll-shows-overwhelming-supp..).

\</comment></comment><comment>

Other key findings from the poll include:

        85% of New York voters believe that its very or somewhat likely that Amazon's HQ2 will create good jobs for New Yorkers and Queens residents
        77% of New York voters believe that its very or somewhat likely that Amazon's HQ2 will improve the economy of New York City
        70% of New York voters believe that its very or somewhat likely that Amazon's HQ2 will raise New York City property values
        68% of New York voters believe that its very or somewhat likely that Amazon's HQ2 will help make New York City an East Coast tech hub
        58% of New York voters believe that its very or somewhat likely that Amazon's HQ2 will raise the tax revenues New York needs for education, transportation, and other vital services
        55% of New York voters believe that its very or somewhat likely that Amazon's HQ2 will create new opportunities for local and small businesses

<comment><USER5> That's right.... nobody is denying that a large company creating jobs, is a bad thing. People are upset for the large subsidies.

the "Do you believe NYC should give 3B+ subsidies to Amazon"

Or, "Do you believe NYC giving 4 times the subsidies to Amazon, compared to D.C., is a good deal?.?

are missing. Put them into the questionnaire, and see how the response rates change.

<comment><USER7> And indeed, the full survey results (linked on the bottom of [https://harrisx.com/2019/02/new-poll-shows-overwhelming- supp...](https://harrisx.com/2019/02/new-poll-shows-overwhelming-support- among-new-yorkers-and-queens-residents-for-amazons-new-headquarters/)) show that once they were asked about subsidies, most respondents (and 74% of those with an opinion on the subject) thought they were too high.

(That's without being prompted with the specific $ amount of the subsidies, as far as I can see. If they had mentioned the $4 billion figure, the response might have been even more overwhelming.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://outline.com/KECmzd](https://outline.com/KECmzd)

</comment><comment><USER9> Its pretty much crystal clear that the entire HQ2 song and dance was designed from the outset to extract concessions from Washington D.C. and NYC (and also collect a shitload of data on leverage they might have in other locales for stuff like amazon warehouses).

Ask yourself if amazon needed this huge competition to build in the two default-choice locales. It is absolutely a total sham.

Good on NYC for opposing this, its likely that this is just Amazon trying to get even more out of the deal.

<comment><USER10> Yes. But the rhetoric around this is wrong. Opposing people's rationale is: "wow, the local government is cutting down a check of 3 billion to a large corporation, fuck them! They should invest in schools and public transportation, etc".

But that's not what a tax incentive is. The incentive is: bring your business here, create jobs, add economic fluidity with your workforce and you don't have to pay 3 billion dollars in taxes.

See how different is that? If Amazon decides to pull out, they just don't bring those jobs and don't get those tax incentives...but there's no extra 3 billion to spend in your community. There's literally 0 dollars more. You're not saving 3 billion in state and municipal funds. Those 3 billion in taxes (whether you exempt someone from paying them or not) only happen if Amazon (or any company) exists in that region.

The worst part is that some elected state officials are getting behind this rhetoric and that's kind of hard to understand. Either they are doing it for populism which is terrible, or they are doing it because they are ignorant which is even worse.

<comment><USER11> You are _guaranteed_ to not earn that 3 billion from that area (usually property tax based) if you offer that incentive to Amazon. You will get _something_ from that area if you don't. Amazon isn't the only game in town - it's not like NYC is starving for new business...

<comment><USER6> The Excelsior program, which is most of Amazon's state subsidy in this HQ2 deal, has existed long before HQ2 was first mentioned. Its goal is to create more jobs, and so clearly there is pre-existing motivation to drum up new business via subsidies. It's also a tax credit on things like prior job creation, and so it does not carry the same risk as a capital investment that the city may not recoup: [https://esd.ny.gov/excelsior-jobs- program](https://esd.ny.gov/excelsior-jobs-program)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand the indignant opposition towards this deal to be honest.

All but $505m of the ~$3b in subsidies here comes from programs that already existed in NY State and NYC (Excelsior, ICAP, and REAP). Would you give up $3b over 10 years (and just $505m above programs that are broadly available) to attract business that will provide an incremental $13.5B in new tax revenue and $186B in GSP over 25 years? That is a _tremendous_ ROI, the kind that typically does not exist in the market, and a $505m capital grant (the primary Amazon-specific concession) is a small price to secure it. The 9:1 return they projected on this deal is the best such program NY State and NYC will have ever run. To put it into context, the Film Tax Credit program had a 1.15:1 ROI.

We can argue all day about whether the HQ2 search was a bluff or sham or whatever, but there is no reasonable claim to certainty here - and hence negotiation enters the picture to turn something uncertain (Amazon MAY come to NYC) into certain (Amazon WILL come to NYC).

> The construction is expected to create an average of 1300 direct > construction jobs annually through 2033. Overall, the project is estimated > to create more than 107,000 total direct and indirect jobs, over $14 billion > in new tax revenue for the State and a net of $13.5 billion in City tax > revenue over the next 25 years. The project provides a 9:1 return on > investment.

> According to an economic impact study by REMI, Inc., a world leader in > dynamic forecasting and policy analysis, the Amazon project will generate > over $186 billion in Gross State Product for the New York State economy over > the initial 25 years. REMI also projects over $14 billion in total new tax > revenue for the State (in 2019 dollars), with annual revenues growing from > $10.8 million in 2019 to nearly $1 billion in 2043. The City forecasts $13.5 > billion in total new tax revenue.

[https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-and-mayor- de...](https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-cuomo-and-mayor-de-blasio- announce-amazon-selects-long-island-city-new-corporate)

<comment><USER12> You don't understand why giving one of the largest, most profitable companies in the world money for real estate while homelessness is widespread and on the rise[1] is objectionable?

Frankly, I don't believe those ROI projections: we've seen these kinds of wildly optimistic plans time and time again with companies promising tax revenues based on straightforward filing, and then using the wide variety of loopholes to (legally) avoid the projected taxes. But even assuming the projections come to fruition: who receives those returns? Is it going to help New Yorkers who need help, or to the already rich? Right now all signs point to the latter. If we're just re-gifting all the money back into already highly profitable companies, I don't really care to hear about ROIs.

[1] [http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about- hom...](http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/basic-facts-about-homelessness- new-york-city/)

<comment><USER6> > who receives those returns? Is it going to help New Yorkers who need help, > or to the already rich?

The net new revenue can be used by the city and state to pay for whatever services they deem fit (e.g. infrastructure, health, etc.).

> we've seen these kinds of wildly optimistic plans time and time again with > companies promising tax revenues based on straightforward filing, and then > using the wide variety of loopholes to (legally) avoid the projected taxes

The company is not promising tax revenues here. The city/state are. They are the ones who commissioned the economic analysis, and I am sure the findings informed their negotiations. The tax sources are not just Amazon either - <USER2> includes things like taxes from the additional jobs and businesses that will be created outside of Amazon.

> I don't really care to hear about ROIs.

The ROI is what matters, though. If you were a city that is looking to increase your budget to provide more services to your constituents, you might consider what sort of investment choices you could make to get there. The ROI here is well beyond any other conceivable option. It is so large that even if projections of a 9:1 ROI are way off, it would be a big win. To put it into context, the NY Film Tax Credit program had a 1.15:1 ROI but was still implemented. Also, most of the subsidy to Amazon is not an up-front lump sum. Rather, most of it takes the form of credits for prior actions.

Taking all this into account, this seems like a super safe path to greater tax revenues, which will improve the city and state as a whole.

<comment><USER12> > The net new revenue can be used by the city and state to pay for whatever > services they deem fit (e.g. infrastructure, health, etc.).

Like giving more money already-highly-profitable companies?

> Taking all this into account, this seems like a super safe path to greater > tax revenues, which will improve the city and state as a whole.

Well, like I said, I'll believe it when I see it. Your argument makes logical sense, it's just that your argument has been used to justify all kinds of spending in the past, and lo and behold, homelessness is increasing, schools are still underfunded, rents are more and more unaffordable, etc. If giving money to already-profitable companies works so well, then why are none of the problems I care about solved already, since we've been giving money to already-profitable companies for decades?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Atlanta would be a good city for Amazon I think. World's busiest airport. They could eventually acquire Turner Broadcasting Systems, CNN. Really aim for world domination.

Maybe partner with UPS? Delta? Coca-cola?

They could benefit from the booming entertainment industry as well.

<comment><USER14> Traffic levels and public transit aren't good here, which was one of the HQ2 requirements. Great city otherwise, however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Amazon should put their headquarters in Las Vegas. Preferably some distance from the strip in some big generic suburbia office park. That place feels soulless and it will be perfect for techies who live in Internet land and just use meatspace for working out, dating and the bathroom facilities.

</comment><comment><USER16> Toronto says Hello!

</comment><comment><USER17> He should relocate the jobs to Virginia with the Crystal Project. I live in Northern Virginia. For $750M we should get it all.</comment>


Ask HN: Which is better - a 4 letter .org or a longer .com? - <AUTHOR>

We have set up a small company with a 4 letter name (say for the sake of our bandwidth it is called "Hido"), aimed at an international audience.
Currently we have "HidoUni.com" (it is university related) but have come across an opportunity to buy Hido.org from a seller. A large international company holds Hido.com and I'm a little concerned they may grab the .org if it goes up for sale.
We are only starting up however and don't have a lot of money as yet to being to just buy the domain without having a good reason to and I'm trying to decide whether there is a good case or not. So I thought I would ask the experts and see what your opinions were.
(Also - Arguably, a .org tld would be applicable for the nature of the company but I'm not sure whether such a perception is maintained internationally.)
What do you think?
Ali <comment><USER2> It would be a good asset to have irregardless of the .com vs .org debate BUT spending money you can't afford to spend when the future of your company is completely uncertain (I'm assuming base on what you wrote) is not necessarily a smart move as awesome as the opportunity may be. Unless you've already launched, have clear traction, etc, you might just spend money on a domain for a startup that may not exist a few months from now.

I can't speak for others but my personal opinion is try to get traction with the company first and then decide whether or not you can afford to acquire the name. Most startups don't survive long enough to worry about what their name ends up being.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply Steven,

Just to give you a bit of information on that front, as that is something I didn't think to mention:

The company has been under development for almost 1 year part time and about 8 months full time now - we are in the end stages of VC + Angel funding with reasonably confident plans for at least the next 5 years' growth.

<comment><USER2> That's a lot of development time for an MVP. Are you guys launched? I should note that you should throw away your 5 year plans. Things change so much from so many angles in a startup's lifecycle, I'd be very amazed if your 5 year plan actually play out exactly as you plan. I am very weary of any plan over 6 months not shifting or changing. A LOT can happen in 5 years. You should focus on great detail for the next 6-12 months at best and a grand vision out there. Any other plans will more than likely shift.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a slightly more complicated startup and highly seasonal so we haven't really gone down the MVP route. I only joined the team in November though when they started looking at implementation.

It's true - I suspect the 5 year plan is going to change a LOT (it's really only for the investors) - but I think that there should be reasonably certain longevity provided the last stages of setup work (if that was useful for the domain choice). Like you say though, we are really mainly focusing on the shorter term at the minute.

Hopefully it works!

Thanks for the help!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think the only reason to get a .org or .net is for SEO purposes. This is what patio11 did with appointmentreminder.org

Since "hido" is obviously not going to bring you any SEO juice it's probably better to go for a longer .com

I don't really like HidoUni, or even having "Uni" anywhere in the name personally. To me it seems either deceptive or lame.

I'd probably go with HidoHQ.com or HidoAcadamy.com or something.

Good luck!</comment>


Shopping Discoveries Product Search - pictorial browsing & comparison shopping - <AUTHOR> http://shoppingdiscoveries.com/search/products This was actually meant just as a side feature to the site but the user feedback seems to be so far that it's the part people (esp. women for some reason) like most. Mostly for product browsing to see what's out there, but also for comparison shopping to compare prices from different stores. <comment><AUTHOR> This was actually meant to be a side feature to the site but the feedback & analytics we have so far is that's it what people seem to like most. Mostly for browsing to "see what's out there" in an easy way. Also comparison shopping between online stores if the same product is detected across multiple stores.</comment>


Zynga Analytics at its Peak - <AUTHOR> http://blog.amplitude.com/2015/06/24/zynga-analytics-at-its-peak/ <comment><USER2> _" Based on this insight, Zynga optimized for monetization by creating buildables that had a number of parts just a bit out of reach of a users' friend network. That way, a player would get most of the parts from their friends, but would be unlikely to gather all of the parts from their network. Since they were so close to completion, they would just pay for the last one or two parts to complete the buildable."_

If there is a Gamer's Hell; once a day George and Charles Parker, Gary Gygax, and Milton Bradley will come down from Gamer's Heaven and kick these guys in the balls.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand how that works, since each user has a different number of friends. Does the number of parts for each buildable vary from person to person? Or did they just make the number of parts be slightly higher than what the average user would have available?

<comment><USER4> If the typical person has 5 friends actively playing, and there are 5 different parts, the chances that a person can get one piece from each friend is 3%? There were also limits on the amount of times that players can help friends daily; it encourages a tit-for-tat dynamic of helping only those who help you. But without built-in tools to track this (mark fav friends, etc), there was always some tension about who "deserves" your help, and players would not spend all their help options right away so they could save some to give back to helpers later in the day, etc... All of these simple mechanics (or lack thereof) interact to create additional scarcity in a very natural, subtle and organic way. And all of it guided, adjusted and optimized via metrics and A/B tests.

(different games worked differently and evolved over time, the above is not meant to be a precise and exhaustive description)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Zynga is a painter that makes every brush stroke while looking at a spreadsheet instead of the canvas. They've now been outcompeted by painters who keep one eye on the canvas and one eye on the spreadsheet. That's progress I guess.

<comment><USER6> You mean like King? Nah, I'm not seeing a whole lot of progress there.

And I think there's some risk to trying to retrodict these kinds of events. It's just too easy to pick up on coincidences and assign too much importance to them. It becomes especially dangerous in light of this big data fad in which it's become common to believe that you really _can_ infer causation from observed correlations, and then feel confident betting entire businesses on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am a bit concerned with the direction of in-game purchases. Games are being designed to push users to spend money. Whats the difference between this and gambling in casinos? Are users aware that algorithms are being gamed to maximize profits? Is this ethical? I think we really need some oversight here. I think an entire generation is being exposed to gambling and exploitation -- and I am not sure if its healthy.

<comment><USER8> I never thought about it that way. Interesting insight. One aspect is that users don't receive a cash payout. They pay money in, but never receive money in return, like you would expect from true gambling. This falls apart when you allow trading within a game though, as you can exchange real money for a virtual trade. Then it does involve a payout.

<comment><USER9> An unregulated casino would never give payouts either. (But they would generate as much false hope as they can afford.)

It's a promise of happiness in exchange for addictive behavior.

<comment><USER10> >An unregulated casino would never give payouts either.

An unregulated casino would not see many patrons then.

<comment><USER9> Why is that? You don't think an unregulated casino could stage wins to make it look like it was giving payouts? Or just make up stories?

<comment><USER10> Do you have an unlimited number of stooges? Such a facade can only be kept up for so long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> To call Zynga a pioneer is a huge insult to the vast number of game makers they stole from.

<comment><USER4> To ignore the ways Zynga was a pioneer is a huge insult to the vast number of non-game makers they employed.

<comment><USER11> now you are saying that zynga invented analytics.

<comment><USER12> No, but they successfully translated the addictive, mindless, money-flushing dopamine rush of gambling into the gaming world, all while neatly avoiding the US's "no paid online gambling" laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's hard for me to critique or analyze Zynga from an unbiased perspective.

There's no question that what they were able to create this monstrous flywheel of engagement around a strong core concept but from my vantage point (read: I know they printed money with FarmVille and CityVille and have more or less floundered in the past year), they were only really good at the "let's take this already successful concept/hook and turn it into a cash cow" side of the equation.

Has Zynga had any successes in the past twelve months? Were they able to break into mobile at all beyond paying $180M for Draw Something?

<comment><USER14> You have to take FarmVille and CityVille's so called "success" with a grain of salt. Social games companies don't measure success by revenue, they measure it by daily active users (DAU). What you don't see is how much money they spend on advertising to attract users to the game. I know at one point, they were spending much more per user than the game was bringing in. You also don't see the churn rate, which is typically high in social games.

There's a real possibility Zynga was never as successful as it appeared to be, from a cash perspective.

<comment><USER15> > _" There's a real possibility Zynga was never as successful as it appeared > to be, from a cash perspective."_

No need for speculation, they went public in 2011. You can read their financial statements.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is where focusing too much on data and moving things up and to the right without any overall thought goes wrong. This is how you become evil and being successful and evil is extremely hard if you don't have a monopoly on infrastructure (eg. Comcast)

</comment><comment><USER17> "an analytics company masquerading as a games company."

I'm wondering if that was responsible for it's downfall? I get that gaming is somewhat of a hit-driven business but not nearly like, say, movies. Incumbents have humongous distribution advantages. I'm amazed that Zynga relinquished its commanding position so thoroughly and so rapidly.

<comment><USER18> I've always wondered if Zynga would have been more successful now if they had pivoted and turned into an analytics and monetization SaaS platform with consulting services.

They are clearly masters at the mechanics and psychology of this, and the technical implementation as well. When your mine runs dry, there's still often quite a bit of money to be made selling shovels to the other miners.

<comment><USER19> I'm a former Z employee -- one of my friends worked on proposals for a spinoff of the analytics platform, but he never got anywhere.

Obviously this is very hard to to do for a number of reasons. Mixpanel employees more salespeople than they do engineers or designers, and Zynga is still 2-3x their valuation just on the core games business.

<comment><USER18> That's really interesting--thanks for sharing those insights.

Zynga is in a hits-based industry, so having a reliable recurring revenue from a b2b SaaS product could enable them more flexibility with their approach on the gaming side from a pricing an user acquisition standpoint. But of course I'm speculating without any hard numbers. Sounds like people much more informed than I am have decided it is not a valid opportunity, and given how far it is from their core business, I can easily see why.

Thanks again.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> All the ways gambling takes advantage of human nature, but without slight chance of a payout. Gross!

</comment><comment><USER21> "During its peak, Zynga was a powerhouse at using data and analytics to optimize their games for virality and revenue."

Guess they didn't optimize well enough. Or optimized only for the very-short term.

<comment><USER22> The original owners pumped it up, IPOed at the peak, and walked away with their money. They're probably very happy with the outcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's good info, but I can't help think about all the creatives that these suited finance guys ripped off. So they got rid of the need for creativity by stealing. Now, all they had to do was apply metrics to their widgets and watch the money roll in.

<comment><USER15> > _but I can 't help think about all the creatives that these suited finance > guys ripped off._

Ah yes, good guys versus bad guys. Has it ever crossed your mind that they're one and the same? Must be nice to live in a world where "sides" can be chosen so naively.</comment></comment>


Vim Movement Shortcuts Wallpaper - <AUTHOR> http://naleid.com/blog/2010/10/04/vim-movement-shortcuts-wallpaper/ <comment><USER2> I don't disagree with any of the comments about missing things in my wallpaper. There are many more ways to accomplish movement within Vim beyond this image.

Available space, both on the screen as well as in a beginner's brain, was my primary motivator for limiting what I put in the image. When I created it, the vast majority of Vim shortcut wallpapers and cheat-sheets all had an order of magnitude more commands on it that I think often scares off beginners. With that in mind, I tried to limit the commands to those who's primary use was easy to visualize spatially from the "center" of the screen (plus a few really useful extras).

That way, if you know you want to get to something "below" your current cursor position, you can just scan through the 10 commands represented to see which one fits.

<comment><USER3> good idea!

Maybe there could be several wallpapers based on experience etc., so as you train and become better, some movements & commands could be taken out and others added.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looking at this wallpaper, I've just realized that everything on it was already in my muscle memory. Ironically, two weeks ago, I've switched to Emacs. It was the best decision I've ever made: I've got everything Awesome with Emacs, and thanks to vim-mode, I've got my favorite editor :)

<comment><USER3> _two weeks ago .. It was the best decision I've ever made_

How do you know if it has only been 2 weeks?

I always see these kind of statements "after 15 years of X I switched to Y 3 days ago, and it's great! Y does not have any of the flaws I spent 15 years to discover in X"

<comment><USER4> Well, to make a long story short, I've tried dozen of editors and my favorite, by far, was vim. But I hate vimscript and the programming interface. Everytime I had to configure/code something was really a pain for me. And I tried Emacs in the past but didn't like it that much.

But then, I _got_ it. And I realized Emacs was really what I wanted.. it's just that I didn't want the "default" Emacs that lots of people use. And, as a matter of fact, I truly enjoy Lisp.

It's a little bit like if you've been with a girl for a couple of months and then you meet someone new. And, in a matter of seconds, you _know_ that this one is smarter, prettier and will make you way happier.

And, I know it's the case with Emacs, even if it's been only a couple of days because I've got _everything_ I liked from Vim.. but, add to that all the extraordinary features of Emacs. So.. what did I like from Vim? The editor, the plugins, the community and how fast it was. I hate VimScript but I love what the Vim community has done with it. I'm just thinking about fuzzy searching in files, the kill ring paste, surrounds, autocomplete, etc. But, guess what, all those things _are_ in my Emacs now.

It's a little bit like if Emacs was a superset of Vim. You can make it identical if you want.. or even more minimal. When I understood that I could delete all Emacs keybinding and just configure it as I wanted, this is when I _got_ it.

<comment><USER5> Hm. What Vim emulation mode are you using on Emacs? Last time I tried to switch, I found that all of the available vi-modes were clunky and missing a lot of Vim motions I use all the time.

<comment><USER4> Hey, somehow my reply didn't worked a few days ago; I'll rewrite it then.

I've been using vim-mode which I find quite nice. Of course, nothing is _perfect_ but this is far from being clunky. I like the philosophy behind it of taking the good part of vim but letting the good things of emacs. Also, _everything_ from that mode is customezable. For instance, you can bind new stuff in virtual mode, normal mode, insert mode.. so you really get back in the vim philosophy.

Seriously, without that plugin, I wouldn't have made it to emacs. For some reasons, I was writing "j" and "k"s everywhere and was highly unproductive without it. Now, I really like the feel of it. I've got my vim keybinding but I still feel like using emacs with its philosophy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great work on the shortcuts, the wallpaper wasn't my style though. Hope you don't mind, but I created a minimalistic version on a dark background.

<http://c.wunki.org/At52>

P.S: Don't know where I got this squared background from anymore, so, sorry for no attribution..

<comment><USER2> I like it! I released the source file in the post so that people could tweak the image to their tastes (either the background if they didn't like the gradient) or the commands if they'd rather see other information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The layout conceptualizes well.

Except one minor gotcha: `Fx` then `,` will actually find the _next_ x, since `,` reverses the direction of last character search, and `F` was already going backwards. But I can see how those movement commands are hard to fit into this layout :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Very nice, I'm learning Vim right now and appreciate this.

However, _I also find it useful to set my MacVim window to be slightly transparent so that I can see the shortcuts through the window if I need to._

When trying to remember/memorize anything, it's mentally helpful to not have it anywhere in sight when reciting it. I was taught this forever by a drawing class I once took where we were instructed to do draw a nude model with our back to him/her, only turning around once every minute or two. Same idea I think :) For this reason I'll keep this bookmarked but I don't think it would be good as a wallpaper.

</comment><comment><USER9> Missing:

\- Text Objects - :help text-object

\- Not a true motion, but ctrl-i/o are very handy. :help ^i

\- Remember that % searches forward on the same line to matching bracket so d% at the beginning of a function call deletes the entire call

\- surround.vim plus the following keymap is the bee's knees(use like `s"[` for surround string with []):

        nmap s      ysi
        nmap S      ysa
        nmap s$     ys$
        nmap sv     gvs

</comment><comment><USER10> cool, but I'd like it more minimal, can you post also the PSD project?

Update: I've found the source here <https://bitbucket.org/tednaleid/vim- shortcut-wallpaper/src>

</comment><comment><USER11> Cool. Looks like M is missing for the middle of the screen.

</comment><comment><USER12> It would be nice to have a simple online tool that would add those vim keyboard shortcuts to any image. I don't want to change my wallpaper.

<comment><USER2> There's a transparent png file in the source files that I've got out on bitbucket ([https://bitbucket.org/tednaleid/vim-shortcut- wallpaper/src/t...](https://bitbucket.org/tednaleid/vim-shortcut- wallpaper/src/tip/vim-shortcuts2560x1600_transparent.png), the white letters don't show up on bitbucket's white background), you can take that file and overlay it on top of another image in pretty much any image editor easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very nice. Looks good with a low opacity terminal.

</comment><comment><USER14> Someone should make a game with those controls hard-coded to help us learn.

<comment><USER15> You mean, like a first person shooter with HJKL instead of WASD?

Kind of reminds me of the old days when I had a really hard time switching from keyboard-only arrow key controls to WASD and mouse in the game Unreal. Unintuitive as hell, but certainly worth it in the long run ;-)

<comment><USER16> Most FPS's will let you totally remap the keys however you wish. I think I tried HJKL in Quake once, but my fingers never really got the hang of it in that context (plus, WASD puts you in easy reach of the modifier keys, which are better targets for action keys wrt gaming)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Missing Ctrl-E and Ctrl-Y (Scrolling with no change in cursor position)</comment>