Hugh Loebner (March 26, 1942 - December 4, 2016) was an American inventor and social activist, who was notable for sponsoring the

Loebner Prize The Loebner Prize was an annual competition in artificial intelligence that awards prizes to the computer programs considered by the judges to be the most human-like. The prize is reported as defunct since 2020. The format of the competition was tha ...

, an embodiment of the

Turing test The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluato ...

. Loebner held six United States Patents, and was also an outspoken advocate for the decriminalization of prostitution.

Loebner prize

Loebner established the

in 1990. He pledged to give $100,000 and a solid gold medal to the first programmer able to write a program whose communicative behavior can fool humans into thinking that the program is human. The competition has been repeated annually and has been hosted by various organizations. Within the field of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

, the Loebner Prize is somewhat controversial; the most prominent critic,

Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, a ...

, has called it a

publicity stunt In marketing, a publicity stunt is a planned event designed to attract the public's attention to the event's organizers or their cause. Publicity stunts can be professionally organized, or set up by amateurs. Such events are frequently utilize ...

that does not help the field along. Loebner also liked to point out that, unlike the solid gold medal for the Loebner prize, the gold medals of the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a multi ...

are not solid

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

, but are made of

silver Silver is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European wikt:Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₂erǵ-, ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, whi ...

covered with a thin layer of gold.Artificial stupidity
, ''Salon.com'', 16 February 2003 Fascinated by Alan Turing's imitation game, and considering creating a system himself to pass it, Loebner realized that even if he were to succeed in developing a computer that could pass the

, no avenue existed in which to prove it. In his letter to Dr. Robert Epstein, written on December 30th, 198

Loebner authorized Dr. Epstein to move forward with a contest, and referring to the Turing Test, Loebner wrote: "Robert, in years to come, there may be richer prizes, and more prestigious contests, but gads, this will always be the oldest."Establishing the Loebner Prize, he introduced the Turing Test to a wider public, and stimulated interest in this science. It remains Hugh Loebner’s desire to advance AI, and for the Turing Test to serve as a tool to measure the state of the art: "There is a nobility in this endeavour. If we humans can succeed in developing an artificial intellect it will be a measure of the scope of our intellect" (from: ''In Response'', 1994

.

Prostitution

Loebner was open about his visits to prostitutes. In 1994, after a campaign by officials in New York City to arrest customers of prostitutes, he wrote an opposing letter to ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', which was published. In 1996, he authored a ''Magna Carta for Sex Work'' or'' Manifesto of Sexual Freedom'', in which he denounced the criminalization of consensual sexual acts, and asked all like minded people to join a protest on June 9, 1996 (a play on the

69 sex position Sixty-nine or 69, also known by its French name soixante-neuf (69), is a group of sex positions in which two people align themselves so that each person's mouth is near the other's genitals, each simultaneously performing oral sex on the other. ...

). In interviews, he stated that he believed himself to be too old for the young attractive women he is interested in; they would not have sex with him were it not for the money. He has compared the oppression of prostitutes and their customers to the oppression that

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical c ...

faced because of his homosexual behavior.

Personal life

Loebner held a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

demography Demography () is the statistical study of populations, especially human beings. Demographic analysis examines and measures the dimensions and dynamics of populations; it can cover whole societies or groups defined by criteria such as ed ...

from the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, it ...

Amherst Amherst may refer to: People * Amherst (surname), including a list of people with the name * Earl Amherst of Arracan in the East Indies, a title in the British Peerage; formerly ''Baron Amherst'' * Baron Amherst of Hackney of the City of London, ...

. He was divorced, lived in New York City, and owned Crown Industries, a manufacturer of

crowd control Crowd control is a public security practice in which large crowds are managed in order to prevent the outbreak of crowd crushes, affray, fights involving drunk and disorderly people or riots. Crowd crushes in particular can cause many hun ...

stanchion A stanchion () is a sturdy upright fixture that provides support for some other object. It can be a permanent fixture. Types In architecture stanchions are the upright iron bars in windows that pass through the eyes of the saddle bars or horizo ...

and brass fittings, which is the major sponsor of the

in the US.

Death

On December 4, 2016, Hugh's ex-wife, Elaine Loebner, announced on Twitter that Hugh had "died peacefully in his sleep". He was 74 years old.

References

External links

Loebner Prize
{{DEFAULTSORT:Loebner, Hugh 1942 births 2016 deaths University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni Activists from New York City Sex worker activists in the United States