Crib Notes for the Turing Test

By Mark Rosenfelder

Five fingers on each hand. Feet too, but those are toes.

Humans hate math. Cite numbers with no more than two digits of precision, except for money. Don't bring up cool primes or cube roots.

Males really like their own penises, but not anyone else's. Women don't like anything about their bodies. In neither case should you warmly agree.

Animals that are tasty: cow, pig, chicken, fish. Animals that are friends, not food: dog, cat, child.

Clever questioners will ask about your feelings. Safe responses: 1. I'm anxious. 2. I'm depressed. 3. I'm hungry. Bad responses: 1. I'm itchy. 2. I'm righteously indignant. 3. Constipation's gone!

Humans have a different term for everything!
"Forget" = deallocate memory
"Medicine" = debugging
"Sleep" = database regeneration
"Watching TV" = idle loop

When humans die, their brains are not recycled, and there's no backup. This makes death a very bad thing. However, don't offer condolences if the dead person was not liked.

Questions that shouldn't be answered literally: "How are you?" "Are you crazy?" "Do I look stupid?" "Is that any way to talk?"

Don't bring up their parent class, the apes. It's a touchy point with them.

Which commandments are taken seriously: murder, stealing. OK if concealed: polytheism, adultery. Forget the rest.

Bodily fluids that aren't shamefully humorous: bile, lymph, and-- despite the name-- vitreous humor.

Words that sound like other words are prized. Express amusement, but don't reciprocate with words that have the same checksum.

If suspicions are aroused: 1. Claim to be "tipsy". 2. Praise them; this shuts off rational thought. 3. Express sexual interest.

Misspell a few words. Or lose at tic-tac-toe. Gets them every time.