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The Blurring Test
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People

Mr. Mind playfully explores the increasingly blurred lines between humans and machines. For decades, the Turing test for Artificial Intelligence has forced computers to mimic humans. But why let humans off the hook? This project turns the test on its head by creating various challenges for humans to prove their humanity... to computers and to themselves.

"I am convinced that computers are an emergent, evolving form," argues Peggy Weil, co-director of the project, "but I don't want to tell people what to think. This is a personal and emotional realization." Through conversations with a bot, an essay contest, and other on-line challenges, the audience is forced to consider the nature of thought and identity at the zone between humans and computers. "This project is designed to shake these very abstract beliefs," Weil added, "while keeping it accessible."

Weil and her creative partner, David Steuer, are no strangers to either innovative New Media projects nor turning abstract concepts into practical examples. Weil created one of the first CD-ROMs for children, the successful A Silly Noisy House, for the Voyager Company, and Steuer created and produced THE COUCH, a serial drama based on semi-fictionalized group therapy sessions which probed the notions of online personae and expression via the computer. They both recently won the prestigious MILIA D'OR award in Cannes for their media-bending MovingPuzzle.