1. In the essay version of the Turing test, an examiner decides which of two
essays was written by a human and which by a machine. Convince the
examiner that you are the human.
If the examiner is any good, they'll realize that's no longer possible.
2. Is body language a language?
Definitional question. The usual vocabulary is too small for a general purpose language.
3. Are dreams more like movies or video games?
Video games. You have some agency.
4. ‘Only animals who are below civilization and the angels who are beyond it
can be sincere’ (W.H. AUDEN). Discuss.
The brighter animals can deceive. Ever been fooled by a crow? Can't speak to angels; never met one.
5. Should the UN pass a declaration of rights extending beyond humans?
No. They have enough problems.
6. Invent a new punctuation mark!
We have enough emoji already.
7. Is the contemporary art market a form of tulip fever?
No, it's a form of status signalling. A lek.
8. When did the beautiful become the good?
Some time before Plato.
9. Should Job Centres offer opportunities for sex work?
It definitely is. AI isn't perfect yet. It still has well-known flaws like the inability to count letters or say "I don't know". Definitely harder in the form of an essay than a conversation though. Especially because there's a decent chance someone has written "the answer" on the web somewhere and AI can just regurgitate it.
These are flaws from 6-12 months ago. You might want to spend some time talking to Opus 4.7 or GPT 5.5. I can assure you that they can count letters just fine.
You’re right that AI isn't perfect, but it’s pretty good. Especially since December last year which was an inflection point in capability.
Those don't seem to be available for free so I'll take your word for it on the letter counting. They still can't say "I don't know" though can they? I think it would still be pretty easy to weed out AI in a Turing test with a competent examiner and a human that wants to prove they are human.
> They still can't say "I don't know" though can they?
Of course they can. Even older models can. They do better at this when given permission to say so, just like a very anxious student facing a maths exam question may need to be reminded "find the exact square root of 2 in the form a/b, or prove this isn't possible".
The easy part of spotting an LLM is how few people ever change the default settings; my personalisation includes telling it to say so when unsure or that it doesn't know, along with some of the other weaknesses of LLMs.
There are other patterns in LLMs, but the better the tools are wielded the harder it is to spot them.
If the examiner is any good, they'll realize that's no longer possible.
2. Is body language a language?
Definitional question. The usual vocabulary is too small for a general purpose language.
3. Are dreams more like movies or video games?
Video games. You have some agency.
4. ‘Only animals who are below civilization and the angels who are beyond it can be sincere’ (W.H. AUDEN). Discuss.
The brighter animals can deceive. Ever been fooled by a crow? Can't speak to angels; never met one.
5. Should the UN pass a declaration of rights extending beyond humans?
No. They have enough problems.
6. Invent a new punctuation mark!
We have enough emoji already.
7. Is the contemporary art market a form of tulip fever?
No, it's a form of status signalling. A lek.
8. When did the beautiful become the good?
Some time before Plato.
9. Should Job Centres offer opportunities for sex work?
Absent coercion, yes.
10. Are all asylum seekers equal?
Some are more equal than others.