A Turing Test is used to distinguish whether or not I am you are talking to a machine or a human. If the responses would be generally considered that of what a real life person would give, then it is said, to have passed the Turing Test.
One of the first machine based artificial intelligence programmes was Eliza. It was primitive by today’s standards, but none-the-less was the first machine based AI programme I encountered in college.
This recent chat with Comcast would seem to indicate a Turing Test failure. To wit:
analyst Arthur has entered room
Arthur: Hello Wayno, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Arthur. Please give me one moment to review your information.
Wayno: My Issue: Life Line service
Arthur: I am here to provide you with excellent customer service today. Please be assured I will do my best to help you with your concern.
Arthur: Can you please elaborate your issue?
Wayno: hi arthur. I have a question about life line services.
Wayno: qualifications, cost mostly.
Arthur: I understand your concern is about life line services, am I correct?
Wayno: correct
Arthur: May I have 2 minutes to check on that?
Wayno: absolutely
Arthur: Thank you.
Arthur: Thank you for waiting, Wayno.
Arthur: XFINITY Voice service is compatible with personal emergency alert response systems provided by Philips Lifeline and Linear LLC. XFINITY Voice service doesn’t guarantee compatibility with other systems. To check compatibility, contact the agency that provided you with the personal emergency alert response system.
Wayno: no that does not answer my question. what are the qualifications and cost of life line service?
Arthur: Contact your alarm company before your XFINTITY Voice installation. Provide the date and time of your installation so the alarm company can check the status of your alarm on installation day. If your alarm system needs to be reactivated after XFINITY Voice is installed, you will not be compensated for the cost of reactivation.
Wayno: okay I am not talking to a human being.
Arthur: I am a live agent, Wayno.
Arthur: I just gave you the information about Life Line service. It is for free.
Arthur: You just need to have a Comcast phone service.
Wayno: how does contacting my alarm company have any thing to remotely do with lifeline?
Arthur: I can see here that you don’t have Comcast phone service.
Wayno: okay you failed the Turing Test.
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Actually I was able to find the information on-line for lifeline phone eligibility.
Wayno
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1 user responded in this post
I’m sorry for the trouble here. I can assure you that our live chat agents are real people. I would like to pull the chat in question and review with the leadership team. Please email us at We_Can_Help@comcast.com with a link to this post, your service address, and contact number. Thank you for your feedback.
Kind Regards,
Melissa Mendoza
Digital Media Specialist
National Customer Operations
We_Can_Help@comcast.com
@ComcastMelissa
+Melissa Mendoza