Want to convince someone that you’re human? This one word could do the trick
Suppose you and a humanoid robot stood before a judge who planned to kill the nonhuman. What would you say to prove you’re the real deal?
Researchers asked 1000 online participants to imagine that scenario. Volunteers came up with words like “love,” “mercy,” and “banana”—perhaps thinking that a machine wouldn’t have use for such verbiage. The scientists then paired the most popular words together and asked 2000 online participants to guess which of the two came from a human and which from a robot (even though they both came from humans).
The winningest word had, surprisingly, nothing to do with human emotion, but rather with a different ability altogether: “poop.” The team, which reports its findings next month in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology , suspects that profanities and other words that evoke emotions rather than describe them—such as “moist”—might also do well.
The test has no near-term applications in computer security, but it could help researchers explore stereotypes about groups of people. For example, what word would you say to convince someone you’re a woman?
NattyFuckFace on September 22nd, 2018 at 00:34 UTC »
Maybe it's just dirty, infantile human language that [edit:] we asume that machines wouldn't bother replicating and we find very human and endearing on a base level.
profirix on September 21st, 2018 at 23:57 UTC »
Maybe its the reaction that the childish humans would have to it, even if it is just a short smirk.
CorrettoSambuca on September 21st, 2018 at 23:16 UTC »
People, this is not an artificial intelligence study. This is a psychology study.
Is it really surprising that, given only one word to convince a judge of their humanity, people chose a childishly funny word? The implication being, people assume machines would not chose this word because they do not have childhood or humor, while a human would recognize it.
What I get from this study is that, when asked "What characterizes you as human", people answer "finding the word 'poop' funny".