WOPR wins the Most Human Computer!

                In the movie War Games, a super computer called WOPR (War Operations Programmed Response) essentially fools the United States government into believing that Soviet Russia is attacking. The WOPR could definitely win the Most Human Computer award in the first half of the movie. Towards the end of the movie, WOPR has to learn about futility, a concept which children typically learn at a young age in games such as Tic-Tac-Toe. Brian Christian discusses in his book “The Most Human Human” the advanced procedures computers can complete while still lacking the ability to complete simple tasks such as recognizing futility. Christian discusses Cleverbot and how it learns from having conversations with millions of different people. Like Cleverbot, WOPR has learned from playing strategy games with Falken, his creator. This computer knows everything there is to know about war and it is hacked. This computer “plays games” by running war simulations. The hacker initiates the game which leads the United States Military to believe they are under attack from Soviet Russia.

                Christian discusses Aristotle’s three types of souls, the nutritive, sensitive, and rational soul. The nutritive soul is considered to be things such as plants; they grow and reproduce. Animals not only have the nutritive soul but also the sensitive soul. They have basic desires and aversions such as hunger, pleasure, and pain.  Humans are considered to have all three, the nutritive, sensitive, and rational soul. The rational soul includes the ability to think and reason. Aristotle argued that only humans are capable of these things. Today, that is no longer the case. Computers can think and reason better than humans. In the movie, WOPR thinks and reasons through all of the war options. It is attempting to create the most efficient way to destroy everything. With all three of these souls, humans were thought to be unique but now computers have the same abilities as humans. Are we still unique?

                Christian discusses his need to prove that he is human during the Turing test. He asks himself what it means to be human. With Cleverbot in mind, he realizes the trick is in the emotional and experiential conversations. Humans are consistent in their emotional and experiential conversations because it is more concrete than it is for computers. Cleverbot learns from his other conversations but because each person it talked to had different experiences and emotions, it could not give a consistent answer for such questions. In the movie, WOPR questions the hacker why his user name was removed from the system. Rather than pursuing the question further, it accepts that people makes mistakes and moves on to asking to play a game.