Human, machine, what's the difference

While not exactly a demonstration of the doom of humanity, here's an interesting article on why the Turing Test is no good.

For those not in the know, the Turing Test is basically a test of a machine's intelligence, using its ability to communicate like a human. Normally, the test would be designed so that the judge would be at a terminal IM'ing with two or more different 'people' - at least one of whom is a machine. If the judge can't tell which is the human and which is the machine, then the machine must be as smart as a human (a flawed jump, but a key component of the test).

If you don't want to read the article, it basically says that the judges as just as likely to find that real people are machines. Apparently we are not good at spotting 'normal' conversations. Odd. And amusing. If we can't spot 'em when they're just boxes, how will we spot the Terminators, or Cylons...