Does appearing intelligent to an interlocutor equal being intelligent? If a human perceives her software interlocutor to be human, does that necessarily imply that the software is intelligent? Thus, for example, the Wired article asks can “a computer use trickery to emulate human responses without being intelligent? What did ‘intelligence’ really mean?” (Platt 1995a). And vice versa, if humans are administered the Turing test, would they easily and unanimously pass for humans? This brings up all sorts of awkward reflections about the distinction between humans and computers, which undermine the essentialist, modernist foundations of what it means to be human.
These reflections clearly preoccupy the author as he gets ready for an annual contest in search of the most intelligent software. The author will take up the role of a collaborator—an interlocutor that judges would have to distinguish from a computer program—that is, a placebo. As the human collaborators prepare for the test, they are instructed by the contest’s organizers: “You must work very hard to convince the judges that you’re humans . . . You shouldn’t have any trouble doing that—because you are human.” But the instructor later goes on to shake their confidence in their inherent humanness: “You are in competition,” he tells them, “not only with the programs, but with each other . . . One of you will be presented with an award for most human human. And one of you will be ranked the least human human” (Platt 1995a). What this suggests is that being human (either for a computer software or a human) is a measurable skill (of which one can possess more or less) and not a dichotomous quality (which one either inherently possesses or not). Moreover, humanness is rendered a quality, or a characterization that is independent of the subject commonly referred to as “human,” quantifiable, and—as we’ll see below—can potentially be either present or absent in humans and in technology. Humanness, in other words, is performative.
As the author fears getting last in the contest and appearing the least human human (possibly even less human than a computer program), he ponders about his humanness, or what we might call his H.Q., his “Humanness Quota”: “I’m going to do whatever it takes to seem totally, 100 percent human when we start chatting online. But this raises some weird questions. I am human, so why should I need to fake it? Is it possible for me to seem more human than I really am? And if so, what’s the best strategy?” (Platt 1995a). Perhaps this very kind of reflexivity with which he engages might undermine his efforts to look human: “if I try to seem more human, I’ll end up seeming less human” (Platt 1995a). Along the lines of postmodern understanding of identity, humanness— like any other identity—is construed in the digital discourse to be constructed, precarious, and performative, not given and essential. Different individuals can be more or less human. For example, the author describes another collaborator in the contest, Linda, as “friendly, spontaneous, outgoing—the absolute antithesis of ‘computer geek’.” These qualities, he adds, make her a sure candidate “to win the ‘most human human award” (Platt 1995a). This statement also elucidates its opposite: being a computer geek makes a person appear more like a computer program and less like a human. Hence, being human is an identity to be constructed and performed and is malleable to quantitative manipulations.
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Media and New Capitalism in the Digital Age