The Turing Test by its_artemis_actually

One of the many gems arising from this year's Open Novella Contest, The Turing Test by its_artemis_actually, is one of my favourites.

The actual Turing Test was a method devised by English scientist Alan Turing in 1950, to determine whether or not a computer is capable of thinking like a human being.

The test involves two conversations (via keyboard and screen) being monitored by a third party, a human evaluator. One of the participants would be a machine and the other human. The test is based not on correct answers to questions, but on how closely the answers resemble human speech. If the evaluator cannot distinguish which participant is the machine, the machine is judged to have passed the Test. (Thank you to Wikipedia for this helpful information!)

Today, nearly 70 years on, the Turing Test is still part of the AI (Artificial Intelligence) discussion. Despite the claims of some programmers, it is generally accepted that no computer has managed to pass the Test. Yet.

Returning to our story, the plot takes place in the offices of SynCo, a future tech company developing the latest line in machines which speak and listen. They are on track to launch their newest invention, CarlOS, a personal assistant which will carry out natural-sounding conversations and even simulate a range of emotions.

The story is narrated by Ronnie Gold, a woman diagnosed with a dissociative emotional disorder by her therapist, and the lead programmer for CarlOS. Despite juggling the demands of Sven, her new fiancé (and boss of SynCo), and the push to get CarlOS ready for the launch, Ronnie is happy.

If only her nights were as straightforward.

"Ronnie Gold only has one dream," and it's a doozy!

"I stand in a small circle of slick grass, and just beyond its radius, the bodies start..."

Haunted by recurring images of a bloody battlefield strewn with corpses, Ronnie is reluctant to confide in anyone else, not her therapist, or her work colleague and buddy, Davis. Not even Sven, because in her dreams, Ronnie is always the sole survivor. Do these dreams represent the past, the future, or something completely different?

And if the nightmares weren't hard enough to deal with, they begin to happen when she's awake... Ronnie soon finds herself struggling to distinguish between what is real and what is in her head. Even her relationships with Sven and Davis come into question.

The Turing Test was shortlisted for the Open Novella Contest 2019 and one can see why. The story is not only full of suspense, but well-crafted in its execution.

Definitions from the coolly logical, dispassionate world of computer programming are used particularly effectively to correlate with aspects of human behaviour.

"In computer science, an abstract method is one with a signature – a name and arguments – but no implementation.... The concept of a relationship is an abstract method. There are no hard and fast rules, because each one is unique, with its own implementation."

Such a dramatic contrast to the bloodthirsty excerpts from Ronnie's nightmares.

It's hard to write any more without giving away too much of the plot, but I hope there is enough here to tempt you to read this story.

Highly recommended.