``Turing test'' for simulated coral morphology

Try out the ''Turing test'' for simulated coral morphology. It is inspired by the test to distinguish human and artificial intelligence that was introduced in 1950 by Alan Turing (Mind, 59, 433-460). Trying to distinguish natural intelligence from artificial intelligence, a human subject would interrogate both a computer program and a second human subject, through a computer terminal. In this way, the human output and the computer output would be presented identically to the human subject, thus making the comparison more ``fair''.

Similarly, here we present natural coral morphologies and artificial coral morphologies through a ``filter'' of computer visualisation. On these three-dimensional images, specimens of the (natural) stony coral Madracis mirabilis were scanned with a medical CT-scanner. Below they are displayed side by side with simulated coral morphologies. Can you tell which one is the simulated morphology and which one is the natural morphology? Click on the images to see the corals in three-dimensions. Dragging with the mouse, you can rotate them. The corals were kindly provided by Mark Vermeij (Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, Miami, USA) and Rolf Bak (Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Texel). The CT-scans were made by Leo Lampmann, St. Elisabeth Hospital Tilburg, The Netherlands.

Please e-mail your guess to Roeland Merks.

Roeland Merks