Goalposts

Hacker News has set AI a lot of challenges over the years. Which ones has it met?

2020 Decembersimonh

About whether the hard part of the Turing test is intelligence or imitating human quirks.

I disagree, I think the hard part of the Turing test is passing well constructed interrogations that check for comprehension, deduction, improvisation, etc. For example you teach the subject a novel game, ask them to play it, then change the rules, or you describe a situation, describe changes and activities and interrogate them on subsequent states. Essentially check for problem solving, deduction, etc, things that require actual intelligence.

You can't proxy a test for intelligence to other attributes, like quirks or personality. You have to actually test for the attribute in question.

An AI learns a novel game from a description, plays it, then adapts correctly when an interrogator changes the rules.

Has this happened?

Yes 63 (54%)Not sure 36 (31%)No 17 (15%)

Votes cast 1–2 October 2026: 100,590 votes from 9,694 people.