For the first time in recorded history, a 13-year-old boy successfully passed the Turing test and convinced a panel of middle-aged men that he was an actual human. This has far-reaching implications for future relationships between teenagers and everyone else

Scientists are still struggling to come to terms with the recent announcement that a 13-year-old boy has passed the Turing test, convincing a panel of judges that he is an actual human being. Such a feat is without precedent in the scientific literature.

Although the Turing test was originally proposed as a test of a computer’s ability to effectively mimic human behaviour, it was deemed appropriate for use on teenagers, given how modern teens mostly communicate via machines anyway. But until now, it was considered highly unlikely, if not impossible, that a 13-year-old boy could ever convince a panel of mature adults that he is an actual human. However, this recent result throws into doubt the whole foundations of human-teenager relationships.

“This has come as quite a surprise,” said Professor Edward Whitehouse, who organised the investigation utilising the tests.

“The general consensus among those of us in authority is that teenagers are essentially different from us “normal” humans. We like to point out how they have different brains, different attitudes to sex, different ways of speaking, different sleep patterns, you name it; they’re just not like us normal folk, so can we really consider them human?”

Professor Whitehouse, when asked why he was so certain a 13-year-old boy could not pass the Turing test, pointed at the constant and ongoing problems people experience when attempting to communicate with teenagers.

“People have spent years trying to tell teenagers how to behave and why they’re so strange, even though they rarely ever ask, and still they persist in giving us attitude and disrespect. It’s clear that they can’t comprehend what we’re saying. You might have noticed that every scientific-style article in the mainstream about teenagers is exactly that; 'about' teenagers, not 'for' teenagers or aimed at them. This is because we’re not sure if they can read. Or even if they can, whether or not they’re willing to do so.”

Some have challenged Professor Whitehouse’s conclusions, pointing out that teenagers are made to read and pass tests far too often. But Professor Whitehouse is dismissive of this.

“The majority of tests don’t count. If teenagers pass them, they’re too easy. And we know they’re too easy because teenagers can pass them. Common sense, that is.”

Professor Whitehouse and his colleagues eventually decided they wanted to settle the issue of whether teenagers were actual people with a Turing test, and opted to assess 13-year-olds in order to make any findings more conclusive.

“Teenagers are generally weird and dreadful, but we all know that 13-year-old boys are among the worst. Always hanging around in shop doorways and bus stops, wearing bizarre clothing in bizarre ways, and they seem to communicate exclusively via homophobic threats on violent multiplayer video games and the occasional stabbing. So if one of them could convince us he’s human, then that would be an incredible achievement. But I didn’t expect this to actually happen, given how a panel of very senior middle-aged academics would obviously know everything about 13-year-old boys, so would definitely be able to spot one trying to communicate as a human.”

Professor Whitehouse and his colleagues emphasise that even attempting to recruit 13-year-old boys to take the test proved very difficult. In an attempt to prevent contamination of the results via observer bias, they would approach groups of unfamiliar young boys on the street.

“Given how we know they struggle to speak with actual humans, we tried to keep our explanations as simple as possible, asking if they’d like to come with us to play fun games, we even offered them sweets and other confection like we do when rewarding lab animals. But more often than not they flee or start throwing stones at us. Some even called the police, demonstrating just how poor their understanding of us adult humans is.”

“But then I remembered that some of those people who do things in my lab may have teenage offspring, so I had my secretary round a recruitment email. There still wouldn’t be any issue with familiarity as I never bother to get to know any of my minions.”

For the actual test, the panel of judges (composed of Professor Whitehouse and his colleagues/golfing partners) had to determine whether they were engaged in a text chat with either an actual adult or 13-year-old David Collodi, the only teenage boy who eventually took part. To the amazement of everyone, David convinced 100% of the judges that he was an actual person.

“It was incredible,” said Dr Brownstone, member of the judging panel. “I spoke to David for five minutes, and not once did he use some gibberish slang, aggressively accuse me of homosexuality or mention willies, bums or boobs.”

“His spelling was mostly correct! And not once did he use an unfamiliar abbreviation or one of those face things made out of punctuation. Personally, I think that’s cheating,” said Dr Phillips, also on the panel.

Professor Whitehouse says that this result challenges current scientific ideas about teenagers.

“Some might think we should start thinking of them as actual individuals, rather than some separate section of society defined solely by flawed presumption and harsh stereotypes. I say that sounds a bit extreme, but there’s surely room for compromise.”

David Collodi himself was more philosophical when asked about his feelings on his landmark passing of the test.

“Can I PLEASE go home now? I have an exam in two days, I’m meant to be revising.”

The Turing test was recently in the news when a computer programme supposedly became the first to successfully pass the Turing test. Despite the reports being somewhat exaggerated, Professor Whitehouse insists that this just supports his own use of the test.

“The Turing test was first proposed by Alan Turing in 1950, and luckily our understanding of computing, artificial intelligence, psychology and human communication has remained unaltered since then, so it’s just as valid as ever.”

Dean Burnett has a 13-year-old brother and really doesn’t like the tone this Turing test news has taken in many of the reports and comments, so he wrote this post to get it out of his system. He is on Twitter , @garwboy