About

Human or Not? is an online game and chatbot site that sets up a Turing test by pairing users with either another human visiting the site or an artificial intelligence chatbot. The site then gives human users two minutes to guess if they're speaking with either another human or an AI, during which they can ask questions. After the site was released in early May 2024, it spread rapidly online with some comparing it to Omegle for the anonymous chatting possibilities and others focusing on what it revealed about AI.

History

The Turing test, or imitation game, was formulated by British computer scientist Alan Turing in 1950, in a paper titled "Can Computers Think?" In this paper, Turing imagined an experiment in which humans would converse via text with a computer pretending to be a human being. If the computer could convince the human that it was another human being, then that would indicate the machine might have the ability to think.^[1]

Between May 7th, 2023, and June 28th, 2023, AI21 Labs ran a version of Human or Not? as an experimental Turing test, gathering data from 15 million conversations from places around the world. The researchers found that the majority of interactions resulted in humans correctly guessing whether the presence they spoke with was an artificial intelligence or not (seen below).^[2]

The Humans & AI company, inspired by the AI21 experiment, created another version of the game and posted it online in December 2023.^[3] This version involved new artwork and was built to last rather than close after a given amount of time, as the original game experiment had.

On TikTok, creators filmed themselves interacting with the new game, just as some had filmed themselves interacting with the AI21 experiment run in 2023.

For example, on January 14th, 2024, @greenskulltok posted a video (seen below, left) that received over 7.8 million views and 588,000 likes in four months on TikTok.^[7] During the original period of the experiment, on May 29th, 2023, @el0santa posted a video (seen below, right) of himself "rizzing up" an AI on Human or Not, which received 2.4 million views and 280,000 likes over the course of one year.^[8]

Users on X / Twitter and other platforms began sharing screenshots from gameplay, often pointing out phrases and words they'd used to suss out whether the entity they chatted with was an AI or a person.

For example, on May 2nd, 2024, X user @BeerfoxTheWise posted a screenshot of a chat in which they'd incorrectly guessed whether they spoke with a human or a bot, earning over 77,000 likes in one day (seen below).^[4] Others followed with similar posts, detailing their experiences on the app as it continued garnering attention.

A subreddit devoted to the game, /r/humanornot, has 600 subscribers as of May 3rd, 2024.^[6]

Features

The game uses a two-minute time limit and a simple text-based interface. The makers intend to improve the performance of the AI models and gradually extend the time limit to the full five minutes prescribed by Turing in his description of the imitation game.

Highlights

Many users of the app posted about meeting other humans on it and making connections that were doomed to be ephemeral because of the game's two-minute time limit and anonymity. X user @sonysayso123O made a post on May 3rd, 2024, referencing this that received over 3,500 likes in 12 hours (seen below).^[5]

Search Interest

External References