title: Coconut

text: Traditional areas of coconut cultivation in India are the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Puducherry, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal and, Gujarat and the islands of Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar. As per 2014–15 statistics from Coconut Development Board of Government of India, four southern states combined account for almost 90% of the total production in the country: Tamil Nadu (33.8%), Karnataka (25.2%), Kerala (24.0%), and Andhra Pradesh (7.2%). Other states, such as Goa, Maharashtra, Odisha, West Bengal, and those in the northeast (Tripura and Assam) account for the remaining productions. Though Kerala has the largest number of coconut trees, in terms of production per hectare, Tamil Nadu leads all other states. In Tamil Nadu, Coimbatore and Tirupur regions top the production list.


title: Coconut

text: In Goa, the coconut tree has been reclassified by the government as a palm (rather than a tree), enabling farmers and developers to clear land with fewer restrictions and without needing permission from the forest department before cutting a coconut tree.


title: Coconut

text: The main coconut-producing area in the Middle East is the Dhofar region of Oman, but they can be grown all along the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and Red Sea coasts, because these seas are tropical and provide enough humidity (through seawater evaporation) for coconut trees to grow. The young coconut plants need to be nursed and irrigated with drip pipes until they are old enough (stem bulb development) to be irrigated with brackish water or seawater alone, after which they can be replanted on the beaches. In particular, the area around Salalah maintains large coconut plantations similar to those found across the Arabian Sea in Kerala. The reasons why coconut are cultivated only in Yemen's Al Mahrah and Hadramaut governorates and in the Sultanate of Oman, but not in other suitable areas in the Arabian Peninsula, may originate from the fact that Oman and Hadramaut had long dhow trade relations with Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, East Africa, and Zanzibar, as well as southern India and China. Omani people needed the coir rope from the coconut fiber to stitch together their traditional seagoing dhow vessels in which nails were never used. The knowhow of coconut cultivation and necessary soil fixation and irrigation may have found its way into Omani, Hadrami and Al-Mahra culture by people who returned from those overseas areas.


title: Coconut

text: The coconut cultivars grown in Oman are generally of the drought-resistant Indian 'West Coast tall' variety. Unlike the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which mostly grows non-native dwarf or hybrid coconut cultivars imported from Florida for ornamental purposes, the slender, tall Omani coconut cultivars are relatively well-adapted to the Middle East's hot dry seasons, but need longer to reach maturity. The Middle East's hot, dry climate favors the development of coconut mites, which cause immature seed dropping and may cause brownish-gray discoloration on the coconut's outer green fiber.


title: Coconut

text: The ancient coconut groves of Dhofar were mentioned by the medieval Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta in his writings, known as "Al Rihla". The annual rainy season known locally as "khareef" or monsoon makes coconut cultivation easy on the Arabian east coast.


title: Coconut

text: Coconut trees also are increasingly grown for decorative purposes along the coasts of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia with the help of irrigation. The UAE has, however, imposed strict laws on mature coconut tree imports from other countries to reduce the spread of pests to other native palm trees, as the mixing of date and coconut trees poses a risk of cross-species palm pests, such as rhinoceros beetles and red palm weevils. The artificial landscaping may have been the cause for lethal yellowing, a viral coconut palm disease that leads to the death of the tree. It is spread by host insects, that thrive on heavy turf grasses. Therefore, heavy turf grass environments (beach resorts and golf courses) also pose a major threat to local coconut trees. Traditionally, dessert banana plants and local wild beach flora such as "Scaevola taccada" and "Ipomoea pes-caprae" were used as humidity-supplying green undergrowth for coconut trees, mixed with sea almond and sea hibiscus. Due to growing sedentary lifestyles and heavy-handed landscaping, a decline in these traditional farming and soil-fixing techniques has occurred.


title: Coconut

text: Sri Lanka is the world's fourth-largest producer of coconuts and is the second-largest producer of coconut oil and copra, accounting for 15% of the global production. The production of coconuts is the main source of Sri Lanka economy, with 12% of cultivated land and 409,244 hectares used for coconut growing (2017). Sri Lanka established its Coconut Development Authority and Coconut Cultivation Board and Coconut Research Institute in the early British Ceylon period.


title: Coconut

text: In the United States, coconut palms can be grown and reproduced outdoors without irrigation in Hawaii, southern and central Florida, and the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands.


title: Coconut

text: In Florida, wild populations of coconut palms extend up the East Coast from Key West to Jupiter Inlet, and up the West Coast from Marco Island to Sarasota. Many of the smallest coral islands in the Florida Keys are known to have abundant coconut palms sprouting from coconuts that have drifted or been deposited by ocean currents. Coconut palms are cultivated north of south Florida to roughly Cocoa Beach on the East Coast and Clearwater on the West Coast.


title: Coconut

text: Coconuts are commonly grown around the northern coast of Australia, and in some warmer parts of New South Wales. However they are mainly present as decoration, and the Australian coconut industry is small; Australia is a net importer of coconut products. Australian cities put much effort into de-fruiting decorative coconut trees to ensure that the mature coconuts do not fall and injure people.


title: Coconut

text: Coconut oil is increasingly used in the food industry. Proteins from coconut may cause food allergy, including anaphylaxis.


title: Coconut

text: In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration declared that coconut must be disclosed as an ingredient on package labels as a "tree nut" with potential allergenicity.


title: Coconut

text: Cocamidopropyl betaine (CAPB) is a surfactant manufactured from coconut oil that is increasingly used as an ingredient in personal hygiene products and cosmetics, such as shampoos, liquid soaps, cleansers and antiseptics, among others. CAPB may cause mild skin irritation, but allergic reactions to CAPB are rare and probably related to impurities rendered during the manufacturing process (which include amidoamine and dimethylaminopropylamine) rather than CAPB itself.


title: Coconut

text: The coconut palm is grown throughout the tropics for decoration, as well as for its many culinary and nonculinary uses; virtually every part of the coconut palm can be used by humans in some manner and has significant economic value. Coconuts' versatility is sometimes noted in its naming. In Sanskrit, it is "kalpa vriksha" ("the tree which provides all the necessities of life"). In the Malay language, it is "pokok seribu guna" ("the tree of a thousand uses"). In the Philippines, the coconut is commonly called the "tree of life".


title: Coconut

text: A reference serving of raw coconut flesh supplies of food energy and a high amount of total fat (33 grams), especially saturated fat (89% of total fat), along with a moderate quantity of carbohydrates (15 g), and protein (3 g). Micronutrients in significant content (more than 10% of the Daily Value) include the dietary minerals, manganese, copper, iron, phosphorus, selenium, and zinc (table).


title: Coconut

text: The edible white, fleshy part of the seed (the endosperm) is known as the "coconut meat", "coconut flesh", or "coconut kernel." In the coconut industry, coconut meat can be classified loosely into three different types depending on maturitynamely "Malauhog", "Malakanin" and "Malakatad". The terminology is derived from the Tagalog language. Malauhog (literally "mucus-like") refers to very young coconut meat (around 6 to 7 months old) which has a translucent appearance and a gooey texture that disintegrates easily. Malakanin (literally "cooked rice-like") refers to young coconut meat (around 7–8 months old) which has a more opaque white appearance, a soft texture similar to cooked rice, and can still be easily scraped off the coconut shell. Malakatad (literally "leather-like") refers to fully mature coconut meat (around 8 to 9 months old) with an opaque white appearance, a tough rubbery to leathery texture, and is difficult to separate from the shell.


title: Coconut

text: Maturity is difficult to assess on an unopened coconut, and there is no technically proven method for determining maturity. Based on color and size, younger coconuts tend to be smaller and have brighter colors, while more mature coconuts have browner colors and are larger. They can also be determined traditionally by tapping on the coconut fruit. Malauhog has a "solid" sound when tapped, while Malakanin and Malakatad produce a "hollow" sound. Another method is to shake the coconut. Immature coconuts produce a sloshing sound when shaken (the sharper the sound, the younger it is), while fully mature coconuts do not.


title: Coconut

text: Both Malauhog and Malakanin coconut meat of immature fruits can be eaten as is or used in salads, drinks, desserts, and pastries such as buko pie and "es kelapa muda". Because of their soft textures, they are unsuitable for grating. Mature Malakatad coconut meat has a tough texture and thus are processed before consumption or made into copra. Freshly shredded mature coconut meat, known as "grated coconut", "shredded coconut", or "coconut flakes", is used in the extraction of coconut milk. They are also used as a garnish for various dishes, as in "klepon" and "puto bumbong". They can also be cooked in sugar and eaten as a dessert in the Philippines known as "bukayo".


title: Coconut

text: Grated coconut that is dehydrated by drying or baking is known as "desiccated coconut." It contains less than 3% of the original moisture content of coconut meat. It is predominantly used in the bakery and confectionary industries (especially in non-coconut-producing countries) because of its longer shelf life compared to freshly grated coconut. Desiccated coconut are used in confections and desserts such as macaroons. Dried coconut is also used as the filling for many chocolate bars. Some dried coconut is purely coconut, but others are manufactured with other ingredients, such as sugar, propylene glycol, salt, and sodium metabisulfite.


title: Coconut

text: Coconut meat can also be cut into larger pieces or strips, dried, and salted to make "coconut chips" or "coco chips". These can be toasted or baked to make bacon-like fixings.


title: Coconut

text: A special cultivar of coconut known as macapuno produces a large amount of jelly-like coconut meat. Its meat fills the entire interior of the coconut shell, rather than just the inner surfaces. It was first developed for commercial cultivation in the Philippines and is used widely in Philippine cuisine for desserts, drinks, and pastries. It is also popular in Indonesia (where it is known as "kopyor") for making beverages.


title: Coconut

text: Coconut milk, not to be confused with coconut water, is obtained by pressing the grated coconut meat, usually with hot water added which extracts the coconut oil, proteins, and aromatic compounds. It is used for cooking various dishes. Coconut milk contains 5% to 20% fat, while coconut cream contains around 20% to 50% fat. Most of the fat is saturated (89%), with lauric acid being the major fatty acid. Coconut milk can be diluted to create coconut milk beverages. These have much lower fat content and are suitable as milk substitutes.


title: Coconut

text: Coconut milk powder, a protein-rich powder can be processed from coconut milk following centrifugation, separation, and spray drying.


title: Coconut

text: Coconut milk and coconut cream extracted from grated coconut is frequently added to various dessert and savory dishes, as well as in curries and stews. It can also be diluted into a beverage. Various other products made from thickened coconut milk with sugar and/or eggs like coconut jam and coconut custard are also widespread in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, sweetened reduced coconut milk is marketed as coconut syrup and is used for various desserts. Coconut oil extracted from coconut milk or copra is also used for frying, cooking, and making margarine, among other uses.


title: Coconut

text: Coconut water serves as a suspension for the endosperm of the coconut during its nuclear phase of development. Later, the endosperm matures and deposits onto the coconut rind during the cellular phase. It is consumed throughout the humid tropics, and has been introduced into the retail market as a processed sports drink. Mature fruits have significantly less liquid than young, immature coconuts, barring spoilage. Coconut water can be fermented to produce coconut vinegar.


title: Coconut

text: Per 100-gram serving, coconut water contains 19 calories and no significant content of essential nutrients.


title: Coconut

text: Coconut water can be drunk fresh or used in cooking as in "binakol". It can also be fermented to produce a jelly-like dessert known as "nata de coco".


title: Coconut

text: Newly germinated coconuts contain a spherical edible mass known as the sprouted coconut or coconut sprout. It has a crunchy watery texture and a slightly sweet taste. It is eaten as is or used as an ingredient in various dishes. It is produced as the endosperm nourishes the developing embryo. It is a haustorium, a spongy absorbent tissue formed from the distal portion of embryo during coconut germination, facilitates absorption of nutrients for the growing shoot and root.


title: Coconut

text: Apical buds of adult plants are edible, and are known as "palm cabbage" or heart of palm. They are considered a rare delicacy, as harvesting the buds kills the palms. Hearts of palm are eaten in salads, sometimes called "millionaire's salad".


title: Coconut

text: The sap derived from incising the flower clusters of the coconut is drunk as toddy, also known as "tubâ" in the Philippines (both fermented and fresh), "tuak" (Indonesia and Malaysia), "karewe" (fresh and not fermented, collected twice a day, for breakfast and dinner) in Kiribati, and "neera" in South Asia. When left to ferment on its own, it becomes palm wine. Palm wine is distilled to produce "arrack". In the Philippines, this alcoholic drink is called "lambanog" or "coconut vodka".


title: Coconut

text: The sap can be reduced by boiling to create a sweet syrup or candy such as "te kamamai" in Kiribati or "dhiyaa hakuru" and "addu bondi" in the Maldives. It can be reduced further to yield coconut sugar also referred to as palm sugar or jaggery. A young, well-maintained tree can produce around of toddy per year, while a 40-year-old tree may yield around .


title: Coconut

text: Coconut sap, usually extracted from cut inflorescence stalks is sweet when fresh and can be drunk as is such as in "tuba fresca" of Mexico (derived from the Philippine "tubâ"). They can also be processed to extract palm sugar. The sap when fermented can also be made into coconut vinegar or various palm wines (which can be further distilled to make arrack).


title: Coconut

text: Coconut vinegar, made from fermented coconut water or sap, is used extensively in Southeast Asian cuisine (notably the Philippines, where it is known as "sukang tuba"), as well as in some cuisines of India and Sri Lanka, especially Goan cuisine. A cloudy white liquid, it has a particularly sharp, acidic taste with a slightly yeasty note.


title: Coconut

text: Coconut oil is commonly used in cooking, especially for frying. It can be used in liquid form as would other vegetable oils, or in solid form similar to butter or lard.


title: Coconut

text: Long-term consumption of coconut oil may have negative health effects similar to those from consuming other sources of saturated fats, including butter, beef fat, and palm oil. Its chronic consumption may increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases by raising total blood cholesterol levels through elevated blood levels of LDL cholesterol and lauric acid.


title: Coconut

text: Coconut butter is often used to describe solidified coconut oil, but has also been adopted as an alternate name for creamed coconut, a specialty product made of coconut milk solids or puréed coconut meat and oil.


title: Coconut

text: Copra is the dried meat of the seed and after processing produces coconut oil and coconut meal. Coconut oil, aside from being used in cooking as an ingredient and for frying, is used in soaps, cosmetics, hair oil, and massage oil. Coconut oil is also a main ingredient in Ayurvedic oils. In Vanuatu, coconut palms for copra production are generally spaced apart, allowing a tree density of .


title: Coconut

text: The husk and shells can be used for fuel and are a source of charcoal. Activated carbon manufactured from coconut shell is considered extremely effective for the removal of impurities. The coconut's obscure origin in foreign lands led to the notion of using cups made from the shell to neutralise poisoned drinks. The cups were frequently engraved and decorated with precious metals.


title: Coconut

text: The husks can be used as flotation devices. As an abrasive, a dried half coconut shell with husk can be used to buff floors. It is known as a "bunot" in the Philippines and simply a "coconut brush" in Jamaica. The fresh husk of a brown coconut may serve as a dish sponge or body sponge. A "coco chocolatero" was a cup used to serve small quantities of beverages (such as chocolate drinks) between the 17th and 19th centuries in countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, and Venezuela.


title: Coconut

text: In Asia, coconut shells are also used as bowls and in the manufacture of various handicrafts, including buttons carved from dried shell. Coconut buttons are often used for Hawaiian aloha shirts. "Tempurung", as the shell is called in the Malay language, can be used as a soup bowl andif fixed with a handlea ladle. In Thailand, the coconut husk is used as a potting medium to produce healthy forest tree saplings. The process of husk extraction from the coir bypasses the retting process, using a custom-built coconut husk extractor designed by ASEAN–Canada Forest Tree Seed Centre in 1986. Fresh husks contain more tannin than old husks. Tannin produces negative effects on sapling growth. The shell and husk can be burned for smoke to repel mosquitoes and are used in parts of South India for this purpose.


title: Coconut

text: Half coconut shells are used in theatre Foley sound effects work, struck together to create the sound effect of a horse's hoofbeats. Dried half shells are used as the bodies of musical instruments, including the Chinese "yehu" and "banhu", along with the Vietnamese "đàn gáo" and Arabo-Turkic "rebab". In the Philippines, dried half shells are also used as a music instrument in a folk dance called "maglalatik".


title: Coconut

text: The shell, freed from the husk, and heated on warm ashes, exudes an oily material that is used to soothe dental pains in traditional medicine of Cambodia.


title: Coconut

text: In World War II, coastwatcher scout Biuku Gasa was the first of two from the Solomon Islands to reach the shipwrecked and wounded crew of Motor Torpedo Boat "PT-109" commanded by future U.S. president John F. Kennedy. Gasa suggested, for lack of paper, delivering by dugout canoe a message inscribed on a husked coconut shell, reading “Nauru Isl commander / native knows posit / he can pilot / 11 alive need small boat / Kennedy.” This coconut was later kept on the president's desk, and is now in the John F. Kennedy Library.


title: Coconut

text: Coir (the fiber from the husk of the coconut) is used in ropes, mats, doormats, brushes, and sacks, as caulking for boats, and as stuffing fiber for mattresses. It is used in horticulture in potting compost, especially in orchid mix. The coir is used to make brooms in Cambodia.


title: Coconut

text: The stiff midribs of coconut leaves are used for making brooms in India, Indonesia ("sapu lidi"), Malaysia, the Maldives, and the Philippines ("walis tingting"). The green of the leaves (lamina) is stripped away, leaving the veins (long, thin, woodlike strips) which are tied together to form a broom or brush. A long handle made from some other wood may be inserted into the base of the bundle and used as a two-handed broom.


title: Coconut

text: The leaves also provide material for baskets that can draw well water and for roofing thatch; they can be woven into mats, cooking skewers, and kindling arrows as well. Leaves are also woven into small piuches that are filled with rice and cooked to make "pusô" and "ketupat".


title: Coconut

text: Dried coconut leaves can be burned to ash, which can be harvested for lime. In India, the woven coconut leaves are used to build wedding marquees, especially in the states of Kerala, Karnataka, and Tamil Nadu.


title: Coconut

text: The leaves are used for thatching houses, or for decorating climbing frames and meeting rooms in Cambodia, where the plant is known as "dôô:ng".


title: Coconut

text: Coconut trunks are used for building small bridges and huts; they are preferred for their straightness, strength, and salt resistance. In Kerala, coconut trunks are used for house construction. Coconut timber comes from the trunk, and is increasingly being used as an ecologically sound substitute for endangered hardwoods. It has applications in furniture and specialized construction, as notably demonstrated in Manila's Coconut Palace.


title: Coconut

text: Hawaiians hollowed the trunk to form drums, containers, or small canoes. The "branches" (leaf petioles) are strong and flexible enough to make a switch. The use of coconut branches in corporal punishment was revived in the Gilbertese community on Choiseul in the Solomon Islands in 2005.


title: Coconut

text: The roots are used as a dye, a mouthwash, and a folk medicine for diarrhea and dysentery. A frayed piece of root can also be used as a toothbrush. In Cambodia, the roots are used in traditional medicine as a treatment for dysentery.


title: Coconut

text: The leftover fiber from coconut oil and coconut milk production, coconut meal, is used as livestock feed. The dried calyx is used as fuel in wood-fired stoves. Coconut water is traditionally used as a growth supplement in plant tissue culture and micropropagation. The smell of coconuts comes from the 6-pentyloxan-2-one molecule, known as δ-decalactone in the food and fragrance industries.


title: Coconut

text: Researchers from the Melbourne Museum in Australia observed the octopus species "Amphioctopus marginatus" use tools, specifically coconut shells, for defense and shelter. The discovery of this behavior was observed in Bali and North Sulawesi in Indonesia between 1998 and 2008. "Amphioctopus marginatus" is the first invertebrate known to be able to use tools.


title: Coconut

text: A coconut can be hollowed out and used as a home for a rodent or small birds. Halved, drained coconuts can also be hung up as bird feeders, and after the flesh has gone, can be filled with fat in winter to attract tits.


title: Coconut

text: The coconut was a critical food item for the people of Polynesia, and the Polynesians brought it with them as they spread to new islands.


title: Coconut

text: In the Ilocos region of the northern Philippines, the Ilocano people fill two halved coconut shells with "diket" (cooked sweet rice), and place "liningta nga itlog" (halved boiled egg) on top of it. This ritual, known as "niniyogan", is an offering made to the deceased and one's ancestors. This accompanies the "palagip" (prayer to the dead).


title: Coconut

text: A coconut () is an essential element of rituals in Hindu tradition. Often it is decorated with bright metal foils and other symbols of auspiciousness. It is offered during worship to a Hindu god or goddess. Narali Purnima is celebrated on a full moon day which usually signifies the end of monsoon season in India. The word "Narali" is derived from "naral" implying "coconut" in Marathi. Fishermen give an offering of coconut to the sea to celebrate the beginning of a new fishing season. Irrespective of their religious affiliations, fishermen of India often offer it to the rivers and seas in the hopes of having bountiful catches. Hindus often initiate the beginning of any new activity by breaking a coconut to ensure the blessings of the gods and successful completion of the activity. The Hindu goddess of well-being and wealth, Lakshmi, is often shown holding a coconut. In the foothills of the temple town of Palani, before going to worship Murugan for the Ganesha, coconuts are broken at a place marked for the purpose. Every day, thousands of coconuts are broken, and some devotees break as many as 108 coconuts at a time as per the prayer. They are also used in Hindu weddings as a symbol of prosperity.


title: Coconut

text: The Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club of New Orleans traditionally throws hand-decorated coconuts, one of the most valuable Mardi Gras souvenirs, to parade revelers. The tradition began in the 1910s, and has continued since. In 1987, a "coconut law" was signed by Governor Edwin Edwards exempting from insurance liability any decorated coconut "handed" from a Zulu float.


title: Coconut

text: The coconut is also used as a target and prize in the traditional British fairground game coconut shy. The player buys some small balls which are then thrown as hard as possible at coconuts balanced on sticks. The aim is to knock a coconut off the stand and win it.


title: Coconut

text: Some South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Pacific Ocean cultures have origin myths in which the coconut plays the main role. In the Hainuwele myth from Maluku, a girl emerges from the blossom of a coconut tree. In Maldivian folklore, one of the main myths of origin reflects the dependence of the Maldivians on the coconut tree. In the story of Sina and the Eel, the origin of the coconut is related as the beautiful woman Sina burying an eel, which eventually became the first coconut.


title: Coconut

text: Literary evidence from the "Ramayana" and Sri Lankan chronicles indicates that the coconut was present in the Indian subcontinent before the 1st century BCE. The earliest direct description is given by Cosmas Indicopleustes in his "Topographia Christiana" written around 545, referred to as "the great nut of India". Another early mention of the coconut dates back to the "One Thousand and One Nights" story of Sinbad the Sailor wherein he bought and sold a coconut during his fifth voyage.


title: Coconut

text: In March 1521, a description of the coconut was given by Antonio Pigafetta writing in Italian and using the words ""cocho""/""cochi"", as recorded in his journal after the first European crossing of the Pacific Ocean during the Magellan circumnavigation and meeting the inhabitants of what would become known as Guam and the Philippines. He explained how at Guam "they eat coconuts" (""mangiano cochi"") and that the natives there also "anoint the body and the hair with coconut and beniseed oil" (""ongieno el corpo et li capili co oleo de cocho et de giongioli"").


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: Dame Kristin Ann Scott Thomas (born 24 May 1960) is a British actress who also holds French citizenship. A five-time BAFTA Award and Olivier Award nominee, she won the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for "Four Weddings and a Funeral" (1994) and the Olivier Award for Best Actress in 2008 for the Royal Court revival of "The Seagull". She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in "The English Patient" (1996).


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: Scott Thomas made her film debut in "Under the Cherry Moon" (1986), and won the Evening Standard Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer for "A Handful of Dust" (1988). Her work includes "Bitter Moon" (1992), "" (1996), "The Horse Whisperer" (1998), "Gosford Park" (2001), "The Valet" (2006), and "Tell No One" (2007). She won the European Film Award for Best Actress for Philippe Claudel's "I've Loved You So Long" (2008). Her other films include "Leaving" (2009), "Love Crime" (2010), "Sarah's Key" (2010), "Nowhere Boy" (2010), "The Woman in the Fifth" (2011), "Only God Forgives" (2013), "Darkest Hour" (2017), and "Tomb Raider" (2018).


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2003 Birthday Honours and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2015 New Year Honours for services to drama. She was named a "Chevalier" of the Légion d'honneur by the French government in 2005.


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: Scott Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall. Her mother, Deborah (née Hurlbatt), was brought up in Hong Kong and Africa, and studied drama before marrying Kristin's father, Lieutenant Commander Simon Scott Thomas, a pilot in the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm who died in a flying accident when Kristin was aged five. She is the elder sister of Serena Scott Thomas, the niece of Admiral Sir Richard Thomas (a former Black Rod), the granddaughter of William Scott Thomas (who commanded during World War II) and the great-great-niece of the polar explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott.


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: The childhood home of Scott Thomas was in Trent, near Sherborne, Dorset, England. Her mother remarried to another Royal Navy pilot, Lieutenant Commander Simon Idiens (of Simon's Sircus aerobatic team flying Sea Vixens), who also died in a flying accident, whilst flying a Phantom FG1 from RNAS Yeovilton off the North coast of Cornwall in January 1972. Scott Thomas was educated at Cheltenham Ladies' College and St Antony's Leweston in Sherborne, Dorset, both independent schools.


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: On leaving school in 1978, she moved to Hampstead, London, and worked in a department store. She began training to become a drama teacher at the Central School of Speech and Drama, enrolling on a BEd in Speech and Drama. During her time at the school, she requested to switch degree courses to acting but was refused. After a year at Central, speaking French fluently, she decided to move to Paris to work as an au pair and studied acting at the "École Nationale supérieure des arts et techniques du théâtre" (). When she was 25, she was cast as Mary Sharon in the film "Under the Cherry Moon" (1986).


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: Kristin Scott Thomas' acting career garnered early attention when she was cast as Mary Sharon in "Under the Cherry Moon", released in 1986, the first but widely panned film directed by and starring the already well-known musical artist, Prince. Her breakthrough role was playing Brenda Last in an adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's "A Handful of Dust" (1988), winning her the "Evening Standard" British Film Award for the most promising newcomer. This was followed by roles opposite Hugh Grant in "Bitter Moon" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" where she won a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress.


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: In 1994, she starred in the Romanian–French film "An Unforgettable Summer", in which she played Marie-Thérèse Von Debretsy. Rather than learn Romanian for the part, she read her lines phonetically. She had all the lines translated into French, which she speaks fluently, so she knew what she was saying. In an interview for "Gloucester Citizen" on 22 March 2015, she cited "An Unforgettable Summer" as one of the films that she is most proud of alongside "The English Patient" and "Only God Forgives".


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: 1996 saw the release of the film with her most famous role as Katharine Clifton, "The English Patient", which gained her Golden Globe and Oscar nominations as well as critical acclaim. This was followed by a brief period working in Hollywood on films such as "The Horse Whisperer" with Robert Redford and "Random Hearts" with Harrison Ford. However, growing disillusioned with Hollywood, she took a year off to give birth to her third child.


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: She returned to the stage in 2003 when she played the title role in a French theatre production of Racine's "Bérénice", and appeared on-screen as Lady Sylvia McCordle in Robert Altman's "Gosford Park". This started a critically acclaimed second career on stage, in which she has received four nominations for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress, including one win, for her performance of Arkadina in a London West End production of Anton Chekhov's "The Seagull". She reprised the role in New York in September 2008. In summer 2014, Scott Thomas returned to London's West End to star as Emma in Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" at the Comedy Theatre. The revival was directed by Ian Rickson. Her husband was played by Ben Miles and the love triangle was completed by Douglas Henshall. In January 2013, she starred in another Pinter play, "Old Times", again directed by Ian Rickson. In 2014, she appeared at The Old Vic in the title role of Sophocles's "Electra".


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: Scott Thomas has also acted in French films. In 2006, she played the role of Hélène, in French, in "Ne le dis à personne" ("Tell No One"), by French director Guillaume Canet. In 2008, Scott Thomas received many accolades for her performance in "Il y a longtemps que je t'aime" ("I've Loved You So Long"), including BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress. In 2009 she played the role of a wife who leaves her husband for another man in "Leaving".


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: In "Sarah's Key" (2010) – the story of the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup – Scott Thomas starred as an American journalist in Paris who discovers that the flat her husband is renovating for them was once the home of an evicted Jewish family. Other roles include Elizabeth Boleyn, Countess of Wiltshire and Ormond, mother of Henry VIII's second wife Anne, in "The Other Boleyn Girl" (2008), the role of a fashion magazine creator and editor in the film "Confessions of a Shopaholic" (2009), and as a love interest of George Duroy (played by Robert Pattinson) in the 2012 film "Bel Ami", based on the 1885 Maupassant novel.


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: She was also seen in "The Woman in the Fifth" (2011), a film adaption of Douglas Kennedy's novel of the same name, Lasse Hallström's "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" (2011), Ralph Fiennes's "The Invisible Woman" (2013), Philippe Claudel's "Before the Winter Chill" (2013), and in Nicolas Winding Refn's "Only God Forgives", which premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. In 2014, she voiced the narration of Kay Summersby, General Eisenhower's driver, in the documentary series "D-Day Sacrifice". She appeared in Israel Horovitz's "My Old Lady" (2014) and "Suite Française", the 2015 film adaptation of Irène Némirovsky's World War II novel directed by Saul Dibb.


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: In 2017 she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 71st British Academy Film Awards for portraying Clementine Churchill in Joe Wright's "Darkest Hour". In May 2017, it was reported that Scott Thomas had signed on to star as BMW heiress Susanne Klatten in the thriller "Paramour", directed by Alexandra-Therese Keining.


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: In 2020, Scott Thomas played Mrs. Danvers in director Ben Wheatley's adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's Gothic romance "Rebecca", with Armie Hammer and Lily James. Also that year, she appeared in the BBC television remake of Alan Bennett's monologue series, "Talking Heads", playing the role of Celia in the episode "Hand of God".


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: In June 2022, Thomas began filming her directorial debut "My Mother's Wedding", starring Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, Emily Beecham and Freida Pinto starring.


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: Scott Thomas is a Francophile. She married and divorced François Olivennes, a French gynaecologist, with whom she has three children: Hannah (1988), Joseph (1991) and George (2000). Scott Thomas has lived in France since she was 19, brought up her three children in Paris, and sometimes considers herself more French than British. On the Graham Norton Show on BBC1 on 2 December 2022, Scott Thomas said she now lives in London.


title: Kristin Scott Thomas

text: In 2009, Scott Thomas signed a petition in support of film director Roman Polanski, calling for his release after Polanski was arrested in Switzerland in relation to his 1977 sexual abuse case.


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: Charles Christopher White Jr. (born August 2, 1994), better known as MoistCr1TiKaL or simply Cr1TiKaL (pronounced "critical"), is an American YouTuber, Twitch streamer, and musician who is known for his commentary videos on YouTube, as well as his live streams on Twitch, where he most often streams gaming content. His content is distinguishable for his monotone deep voice and deadpan delivery of comedic commentary. In addition, White is the co-founder and co-owner of the esports organization Moist Esports and co-founder and member of the metal duo the Gentle Men.


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: As of December 2022, White's YouTube channel has gained over 6.4 billion video views and over 11.8 million subscribers, averaging 151.4 million views per month on the platform; his Twitch channel has gained over 4.6 million followers and over 59 million views.


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: White started making YouTube videos in 2006, when he uploaded music and AMVs to his old channels. He created his penguinz0 YouTube channel on May 7, 2007. During this time, he streamed live on Justin.tv from late 2009 to early 2010.


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: In 2013, White was cited by "Tubefilter" as panning YouTube's new comment system, which required a Google+ account to leave comments on videos. In 2015, after eight years of anonymity, White made his Snapchat username, "big_moist", public, revealing his face. He uploaded his first video showing his face on camera on March 5, 2017. In early 2015, White began speaking about various topics, including internet drama. He drew attention from media outlets for his commentary videos, which were often of discourse about online platforms and considerably critical of YouTube's policies. In December 2016, White began co-hosting "The Official Podcast" with fellow Internet personalities Zealot, Huggbees, and Kaya Orsan.


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: Media outlets sparsely referenced White's gameplay videos; his 2015 video on "" was referenced by "The Daily Star". "The Daily Dot" wrote that White is known for his "sardonic commentary." In February 2016, "The Guardian" included his video reaction to the Fine Brothers' React World controversy in their coverage of the situation. "Kotaku" referenced White's 2017 video demonstrating character customization in "".


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: White continued to make content discussing events in online platforms and their communities. In January 2018, White addressed YouTube, which removed his video discussing Logan Paul's . By March 2018, White's YouTube channel had two million subscribers. In May, White's video featuring a pit of 5,400 balls, which he made for his husky Tetra, went viral; the Press Association interviewed him about it and media outlets reported it. In 2018, White began livestreaming on Twitch. In March 2020; due to COVID-19 lockdown measures, he co-hosted an online "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" tournament on his Twitch channel with fellow YouTuber Alpharad.


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: In late 2020, White's popularity grew due to his Twitch streams about chess and "Among Us" (during its 2020 popularity spike) with popular streamers such as Sykkuno, Pokimane, Nigahiga, Valkyrae, Trainwreckstv, and Disguised Toast. In June, White participated in the first PogChamps chess tournament, which Chess.com hosted. He won "one of the more anticipated games" in the tournament, beating fellow Twitch streamer xQc in six moves. According to "Dot Esports", the game was one of the five "biggest moments in streaming from 2020" and the clip of White's victory became one of the most-viewed in Twitch history, gaining over 1.9 million views by December 24, 2020. White won the tournament's consolation bracket. In late October, White participated in U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "Among Us" live streams.


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: In November, White signed a contract with BroadbandTV Corp (BBTV) to become a content partner with the company. Also in November, White spoke in a YouTube video about an increase in Twitch's DMCA crackdowns. In December, White participated in a "Pokémon Week" event on Twitch in which several creators hosting streams in which they opened boxes of Pokémon cards. In January 2021, White began hosting a game show titled "Hivemind" with fellow streamer Ludwig Ahgren on Twitch.


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: On February 22, 2021, former YouTuber MaximilianMus deleted his YouTube channel after White labeled him "the worst YouTuber" in one of his videos, in which he criticized him for maliciously raiding Twitch channels and claimed that his audience had shared child pornography via Discord servers and his subreddit. In May of that year, MaximilianMus restored his channel and accused White of slander. In October 2021, White participated in a "Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl" charity tournament hosted by Alpharad and Coney of Panda Global.


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: In 2019, White and Troy McKubre of the band Solstate started a musical duo named the Gentle Men. The duo started producing music with a string of singles released that same year. In 2019, White co-founded Human Media Group, an American multi-channel network, with his friend Matt Philips. The network provides brand deals and legal teams to online content creators. On July 5, 2021, White announced the launch of a graphic novel series titled "GODSLAP", which he wrote with author Stephanie Phillips and artist Ricardo Jaime, and was published by Meatier Productions. White expressed interest in the expansion of the series beyond comics, and hinted at an animated adaptation that was being produced.


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: On August 11, 2021, White announced a new esports organization named Moist Esports. "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" player Kolawole "Kola" Aideyan became the first player to join, and won a tournament under the name "Moist Kola". On August 8, 2022, gaming organization One True King, along with White, announced the founding of technology company Starforge Systems, which focuses on building computers. The company was quickly met with backlash due to the allegedly high prices of their products, to which they responded by decreasing their prices by $100.


title: Cr1TiKaL

text: White was born on August 2, 1994, in Tampa, Florida. He attended Carrollwood Day School and was a member of the varsity basketball team. White had recurrent pneumothorax in his left lung, which collapsed three times before he underwent surgery in 2011. White suffered from obsessive–compulsive disorder during his teenage years and at the time performed "weird rituals" due to it. He attended The University of Tampa and graduated with a bachelor's degree in human sciences with a focus on exercise physiology. White resides in Tampa with his girlfriend.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: The Pietà (; 1498–1499) is a key work of Italian Renaissance sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti, now in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. It is the first of a number of works of the same subject by the artist. The statue was commissioned for the French Cardinal Jean de Bilhères, who was the French ambassador in Rome. The sculpture, in Carrara marble, was made for the cardinal's funeral monument, but was moved to its current location, the first chapel on the north side after the entrance of the basilica, in the 18th century. It is the only piece Michelangelo ever signed.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: This famous work of art depicts the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion. Michelangelo's interpretation of the "Pietà" is unprecedented in Italian sculpture. It is an important work as it balances the Renaissance ideals of classical beauty with naturalism.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: In 2019, a small terracotta figure identified as a model for the final sculpture was displayed in Paris.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: The structure is pyramidal, and the vertex coincides with Mary's head. The statue widens progressively down the drapery of Mary's dress, to the base, the rock of Golgotha. The figures are quite out of proportion, owing to the difficulty of depicting a fully-grown man cradled full-length in a woman's lap. Much of Mary's body is concealed by her monumental drapery, and the relationship of the figures appears quite natural. Michelangelo's interpretation of the "Pietà" was far different from those previously created by other artists, as he sculpted a young and beautiful Mary rather than an older woman around 45 years of age.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: The marks of the Crucifixion are limited to very small nail marks and an indication of the wound in Jesus' side.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: Christ's face does not reveal signs of the Passion. Michelangelo did not want his version of the "Pietà" to represent death, but rather to show the "religious vision of abandonment and a serene face of the Son," thus the representation of the communion between man and God by the sanctification through Christ.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: When Michelangelo set out to create his "Pietà", he wanted to create a work he described as "the heart's image".


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: Mary is represented as being very young for the mother of an approximately 33-year-old son, which is not uncommon in depictions of the Passion of Christ at the time. Various explanations have been suggested for this. One is that her youth symbolizes her incorruptible purity, as Michelangelo himself said to his biographer and fellow sculptor Ascanio Condivi:


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: Another explanation suggests that Michelangelo's treatment of the subject was influenced by his passion for Dante's "Divine Comedy": so well-acquainted was he with the work that when he went to Bologna, he paid for hospitality by reciting verses from it. In (cantica 33 of the poem), Bernard of Clairvaux, in a prayer for the Virgin Mary, says ("Virgin mother, daughter of your son"). This is said because, since Christ is one of the three figures of Trinity, Mary would be his daughter, but it is also she who bore him.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: Following completion, the "Pietà"s first home was the Chapel of Santa Petronilla, a Roman mausoleum near the south transept of St. Peter's, which the Cardinal chose as his funerary chapel. The chapel was later demolished by Bramante during his rebuilding of the basilica. According to Giorgio Vasari, shortly after the installation of his "Pietà", Michelangelo overheard someone remark (or asked visitors about the sculptor) that it was the work of another sculptor, Cristoforo Solari, whereupon Michelangelo signed the sculpture. Michelangelo carved the words ("Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, was making this") on the sash running across Mary's chest. The signature echoes one used by the ancient Greek artists Apelles and Polykleitos. It was the only work he ever signed. Vasari also reports the anecdote that Michelangelo later regretted his outburst of pride and swore never to sign another work of his hands.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: Fifty years later Vasari was still celebrating the work, writing: "(Regarding the Pietà) Never think, a rare sculptor or craftsman, to be able to add design or grace, nor with difficulty never being able to finesse, cleanliness and to pierce the marble as much with art, as Michelangelo did there, because you can see in it all the value and power of art "


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: In 1964, the "Pietà" was lent by the Vatican to the 1964–1965 New York World's Fair to be installed in the Vatican pavilion. Francis Cardinal Spellman, who had requested the statue from Pope John XXIII, appointed Edward M. Kinney, Director of Purchasing and Shipping of Catholic Relief Services – USCC, to head up the Vatican Transport Teams. The statue was shipped in a wooden crate thick with an base, secured to the deck of the liner "Cristoforo Colombo"; in case of an accident, the crate contained cushioning so thick that it would float in water, and had an emergency locator beacon as well as a marker buoy attached.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: At the fair, people stood in line for hours to catch a glimpse from a conveyor belt moving past the sculpture. It was returned to the Vatican afterwards.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: Subsequent to its carving the "Pietà" sustained much damage. Four fingers on Mary's left hand, broken during a move, were restored in 1736 by Giuseppe Lirioni, and scholars are divided as to whether the restorer took liberties to make the gesture more "rhetorical". The most substantial damage occurred on 21 May 1972 (Pentecost Sunday), when a mentally disturbed geologist, the Hungarian-born Australian Laszlo Toth, walked into the chapel and attacked the sculpture with a geologist's hammer while shouting, "I am Jesus Christ; I have risen from the dead!" With 15 blows he removed Mary's arm at the elbow, knocked off a chunk of her nose, and chipped one of her eyelids. Bob Cassilly, an American sculptor and artist from St. Louis, Missouri, was one of the first people to remove Toth from the "Pietà". "I leaped up and grabbed the guy by the beard. We both fell into the crowd of screaming Italians. It was something of a scene." Onlookers took many of the pieces of marble that flew off. Later, some pieces were returned, but many were not, including Mary's nose, which had to be reconstructed from a block cut out of her back.


title: Pietà (Michelangelo)

text: After the attack, the work was painstakingly restored and returned to its place in St. Peter's, just to the right of the entrance, between the holy door and the altar of Saint Sebastian, and is now protected by a bulletproof acrylic glass panel.


title: AnyDesk

text: AnyDesk is a remote desktop application distributed by AnyDesk Software GmbH. The proprietary software program provides platform independent remote access to personal computers and other devices running the host application. It offers remote control, file transfer, and VPN functionality. AnyDesk is often used in technical support scams and other remote access scams.


title: AnyDesk

text: AnyDesk Software GmbH was founded in 2014 in Stuttgart, Germany and has gone worldwide, with subsidiaries in the US, China, and Hong Kong, as well as an Innovation Hub in Georgia.


title: AnyDesk

text: In May 2018, AnyDesk secured 6.5 million Euros of funding in a Series A round led by EQT Ventures. Another round of investment in January 2020 brings AnyDesk to over 20 million Dollars of combined funding.


title: AnyDesk

text: AnyDesk uses a proprietary video codec "DeskRT" that is designed to allow users to experience higher-quality video and sound transmission while reducing the transmitted amount of data to the minimum.


title: AnyDesk

text: AnyDesk partnered with remote monitoring and management and mobile device management services, such as Atera and Microsoft Intune.


title: AnyDesk

text: Availability of features is dependent upon the license of the individual user. Some main features include:


title: AnyDesk

text: AnyDesk uses TLS-1.2 with authenticated encryption. Every connection between AnyDesk-Clients is secured with AES-256. When a direct network connection can be established, the session is endpoint encrypted and its data is not routed through AnyDesk servers. Additionally, whitelisting of incoming connections is possible.


title: AnyDesk

text: AnyDesk is one of many tools used in technical support scams and other remote access scams. It can be optionally installed on computers and smartphones with full administrative permissions, if the user chooses to do so. This provides the host user with full access to the guest computer over the Internet, and, like all remote desktop applications, is a severe security risk if connected to an untrusted host.


title: AnyDesk

text: In February 2019, Reserve Bank of India warned of an emerging digital banking fraud, explicitly mentioning AnyDesk as the attack channel. The general scam procedure is as follows: fraudsters get victims to download AnyDesk from the Google Play Store on their mobile phone, usually by mimicking the customer service of legitimate companies. Then, the scammers convince the victim to provide the nine-digit access code and to grant certain permissions. After permissions are obtained and if no other security measures are in place, the scammers usually transfer money using the Indian Unified Payment Interface. A similar scam took place in 2020 according to Kashmir Cyber police. The same method of theft is widely used internationally on either mobile phones or computers: a phone call convinces a person to allow connection to their device, typically from a caller claiming to be a service provider to "solve problems with the computer/phone", warning that Internet service will otherwise be disconnected, or from a caller claiming to be a financial institution because "there have been suspicious withdrawal attempts from your account".


title: AnyDesk

text: In May 2018, the Japanese cybersecurity firm Trend Micro discovered that cybercriminals bundled a new ransomware variant with AnyDesk, possibly as an evasion tactic masking the true purpose of the ransomware while it performs its encryption routine.


title: AnyDesk

text: Scammers have been known to use AnyDesk and similar remote desktop software to obtain full access to the victims' computer by impersonating a technical support person. The victim is asked to download and install AnyDesk and provide the attackers with access. When access is obtained, the attackers can control the computer and move personal files and sensitive data.


title: AnyDesk

text: In 2017, the UK based ISP TalkTalk banned TeamViewer and similar software from all its networks after scammers cold called victims and talked them into giving access to their computer. The software was removed from the blacklist after setting up a scam warning. In September 2021, the State Bank of India warned customers not to install AnyDesk or similar apps. In March 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation issued a cybersecurity advisory noting that AnyDesk software was used in the operations of the AvosLocker ransomware gang.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: Hibatullah Akhundzada, also spelled Haibatullah Akhunzada, is an Afghan Islamic scholar, cleric, and jurist who is the supreme leader of Afghanistan. He has led the Taliban since 2016, and came to power with its victory over Western-backed forces in the 2001–2021 war. However, he has remained a reclusive figure, and his low profile has fueled speculations about his role in the new Taliban government, and rumours that he may be dead. Except for an undated photograph, and several audio recordings of speeches, he has almost no digital footprint.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: The Taliban call him the (), which was the title of his two predecessors. Akhundzada is well known for his on Taliban matters. He served as the Islamic judge of the Sharia courts of the 1996–2001 Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Unlike many Taliban leaders, he is not of a militant background. He was elected as the leader of the Taliban in May 2016 after the death of the previous leader, Akhtar Mansour, in a US drone strike in Pakistan. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaeda, backed Akhundzada as the "Amir al-Mu'minin", which strengthened Akhundzada's jihadist reputation among the Taliban's allies.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: His government has been criticized for totalitarianism and broad restrictions on human rights in Afghanistan, including the right of women and girls to work and education. The Taliban administration has prevented most teenage girls from returning to secondary school education. However, in a rare appearance in July 2022 at a religious gathering in Kabul, Akhundzada lashed out at the demands of the international community on his government, ruling out any talks or compromise on his "Islamic system" of governance.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: Believed to be in his 70s (as of May 2022), Akhundzada was born in the village of Sperwan in the Panjwayi District of Kandahar Province, Kingdom of Afghanistan. A Pashtun, he belongs to the Nurzai tribe. His first name, Hibatullah, means "gift from God" in Arabic. His father, Muhammad Akhund, was a religious scholar and imam at the Malook mosque in Safid Rawan village. Not owning any land or orchards of their own, the family depended on what the congregation paid his father in cash or in a portion of their crops. Akhundzada's son was a suicide bomber.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: The family migrated to Quetta in the Balochistan province of Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979). Akhundzada studied at one of the madrassas in Pakistan and earned the title "Sheikh al-Hadith". In the 1980s, he was "involved in the Islamist resistance" to the Soviet military campaign in Afghanistan. According to the Taliban, he fought for Hezb-i Islami Khalis during this time. In the early 1990s, as the Islamist insurgency was gaining ground in Afghanistan following the Soviet occupation, Akhundzada went back to his village in Kandahar Province. Abdul Qayum, a 65-year-old villager, recalled that Akhundzada would have talks with visitors from "the city and from Pakistan." After the United States invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, Akhundzada escaped to Pakistan and sought shelter in Quetta. Because of his knowledge in Islamic law, he became the head of the Taliban's shadow justice system and the acclaimed trainer of a whole generation of Taliban militants who graduated through Quetta.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 16 August 2019, Akhundzada's younger brother, Hafiz Ahmadullah, was killed along with at least three other persons in a bomb blast during Friday prayer at the Khair Ul Madaris mosque in Kuchlak, Quetta, Pakistan. More than 20 people were wounded in the attack, including Akhundzada’s son and two nephews. Akhundzada used to teach and lead prayers at the mosque and seminary that was attacked.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: Officials of the ousted Afghan government, as well as some Western analysts, believed that Akhundzada was killed along with his brother in the bomb blast in Quetta. "If they [the Taliban] announce Akhundzada is no more and we are looking for a new emir, it will factionalize the Taliban, and the Islamic State – Khorasan Province [the rival extremist group] could take advantage," a regional security source told Agence France-Presse. However, the Taliban denied the claims about Akhundzada's death.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: According to a Pakistan-based Taliban member, who said he had met Akhundzada three times until 2020, Akhundzada does not use modern technology, preferring to make phone calls on landlines. He added that Akhundzada communicates to Taliban officials via letters.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: In September 2021, it was revealed that Akhundzada had not been seen in public since the Taliban seized control of Kabul the previous month, giving rise to speculation that he might be dead, and that his decrees were being drafted by a committee. The death of the Taliban's founding leader, Mullah Omar, had been previously concealed for two years, and during that time, the Taliban had continued to issue statements in Mullah Omar's name. On 30 October 2021, Taliban officials said Akhundzada made a public appearance at the Darul Uloom Hakimah madrassa in Kandahar. No photos or videos were released, but a ten-minute audio recording was shared by Taliban social media accounts, which might have eased rumours of his death. This would be his first public appearance in Afghanistan, if the reports are true. The madrassa's head of security, Massum Shakrullah, told Agence France-Presse that when Akhundzada visited, he was "armed" and accompanied by three security guards. "Even cellphones and sound recorders were not allowed" into the venue, he added. Mohammad Musa, 13, who watched from afar, said Akhundzada looked "exactly the same" as in his only released photograph. Another student, Mohammed, 19, said "we all were watching him" and were "just crying." When Mohammed was asked if he could confirm that it was really Akhundzada, he replied he and his peers were so overjoyed that they "forgot to watch his face."


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 30 April 2022, Akhundzada made a rare appearance at the Eidgah mosque in Kandahar on the last day of Ramadan and delivered a brief sermon, while keeping his back turned to the crowd. During the two-hour event, two helicopters hovered over the mosque. Dozens of Taliban fighters were deployed where Akhundzada and other Taliban leaders were sitting, who did not allow journalists to approach him and barred worshippers from taking photos on cellphones. The voice said to be Akhundzada's came from the front rows of worshippers. Expressing his shock, a worshipper named Aziz Ahmad Ahmadi said, “I cried when I heard the voice of Sheikh Saheb [Akhundzada]. To hear him is like achieving my biggest dream.” However, Ahmadi said he had failed to spot Akhundzada among the crowd.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 1 July 2022, he was said to have appeared at a major religious assembly in Kabul, delivering an hour-long speech broadcast by state radio. Over 3,000 clerics attended the three-day, men-only meeting, although no independent journalist was allowed to attend the gathering.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: He joined the Taliban in 1994, and became one of its early members. After they gained control of Farah Province in 1995, he was part of the vice and virtue police there. Later, he was the head of the Taliban's military court in eastern Nangarhar Province and then the deputy head of the Supreme Court. He later moved to Kandahar where he was an instructor at the Jihadi Madrasa, a seminary that Taliban founding leader Mohammed Omar looked after.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: After the Taliban government fell to the US-led invasion in 2001, Akhundzada became the head of the group's council of religious scholars. He was later appointed as Chief Justice of the Sharia Courts of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and became an advisor to Mohammed Omar. Rather than a military commander, he has a reputation as a religious leader who was responsible for issuing most of the Taliban's "fatwas" and settling religious issues among members of the Taliban. Both Omar and Akhtar Mansour, his successor as supreme leader, consulted Akhundzada on matters of fatwa. Akhundzada was a senior member of the Taliban's Quetta Shura.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: He was appointed as one of two deputy leaders of the Taliban under Mansour in 2015. He was the most visible face of the Taliban's top leadership, as Mansour mostly stayed out of public view and did not openly attend meetings for security reasons, and the other deputy, Sirajuddin Haqqani, was mostly involved in military affairs. Akhundzada put in place a system under which a commission would be formed under the shadow governor in every province that could investigate abusive commanders or fighters, according to Abdul Bari, a commander in Helmand Province.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: Akhundzada was reportedly living in the Ghaus Abad area of Quetta in 2016 and leading up to ten madrassas in Balochistan.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: Akhundzada was appointed as Taliban Supreme Leader on 25 May 2016, succeeding Mansour, who had been killed in a US drone strike. Two leading contenders for the role were Sirajuddin Haqqani, Mansour's other deputy, and Mullah Yaqoob, the son of founding leader Mohammad Omar. Akhundzada's appointment surprised some, who saw him as the third ranked candidate, but a compromise choice to avoid resentment if either of the others was appointed. Taliban sources said that Mansour had designated Akhundzada as his successor in his will, though this may have been an invention to try to confer authority on his appointment. Yaqoob and Haqqani were appointed as Akhundzada's two deputies. Abdul Razaq Akhund and Abdul Sata Akhund pledged their support to Akhundzada in December 2016.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: Yousef Ahmadi, the Taliban's main spokesmen for southern Afghanistan, said that Akhundzada's younger son Abdur Rahman Khalid had died carrying out a suicide attack on an Afghan military base in Gereshk in Helmand Province in July 2017. Taliban officials said that Akhundzada had been aware of his son's intention and approved of it. In 2019, under the leadership of Akhundzada, Taliban won the Battle of Darzab by defeating the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's Khorasan branch.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: In May 2021, Akhundzada called the Afghan people to unite for the development of an Islamic state once the United States forces withdraw. In August 2021, forces under his nominal command began a general offensive seeking to achieve a final victory in the war. During the leadership of Akhundzada, the United States troops withdrew, and the Taliban gained control of Kabul. On 18 August, it was announced that based on the general amnesty issued by Akhundzada, "it was decided to release political detainees from all prisons of Afghanistan". By the time, the Taliban has already taken control of key prisons across the country and freed thousands of inmates, including ISIL fighters, al-Qaeda members and senior Taliban figures.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: Two attempts have been made to assassinate Akhundzada. During a 2012 lecture by Akhundzada, in Quetta, a man stood among the students and pointed a pistol at Akhundzada from a close range, but the pistol jammed. Mullah Ibrahim, a student of Akhundzada, told "The New York Times" that "Taliban rushed to tackle" and restrain the attacker, before he could clear the jam; Akhundzada reportedly did not move during the incident, or the chaos that followed. The Taliban accused the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency, of the attempted shooting.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: During the Friday prayer on 16 August 2019, a powerful blast tore through the Khair Ul Madaris mosque in Kuchlak, Quetta, Pakistan, killing Akhundzada's brother Hafiz Ahmadullah and their father. Ahmadullah had succeeded Akhundzada as leader of the mosque, which had served as the main meeting place of the Quetta Shura after Akhundzada was appointed as the Taliban emir. "It was a timed device planted under the wooden chair of the prayer leader," said Abdul Razzaq Cheema, the Quetta police chief. However, the police did not reveal the identity of the victims. More of Akhundzada's relatives were later confirmed to have died in the blast. The High Council of Afghanistan Islamic Emirate, a breakaway faction of the Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack, adding that the prime target was Akhundzada.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: With little known about Akhundzada and the lack of any photographs of him in the aftermath of the fall of Kabul, questions were raised whether he was alive and remained leader. Media reports after the fall of Kabul suggested that he was in the custody of the Pakistani Army. However, on 21 August, the Taliban told "The Sunday Guardian" that Akhundzada was alive and based in Kandahar. On 8 September, Akhundzada issued a statement addressed to the interim government, telling it to uphold sharia in Afghanistan.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 3 December 2021, Akhundzada issued a decree that stipulated the rights of women under Sharia. It stated that women have a right to marital consent, and cannot be treated as property. It added that widows were allowed to maritally consent to new husbands, payment from her new husband during Nekah, and to inherit property equally among their family. The Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Information and Culture, and the Supreme Court were instructed to implement the decree and communicate it to the public.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 8 December 2021, Akhundzada issued instructions to provincial governors to convince individuals not to leave the country and try to address their grievances while also increasing security measures.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 14 March 2022, Akhundzada issued directives consisting of 14 points to the Armed Forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan concerning the conduct of it’s personnel.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 23 March 2022, Akhundzada reportedly vetoed a plan for girls in grades 7 to 12 to return to school. This decision was reported to be due to the strong urging of ultraconservative figures in the Council of Ministers such as Noor Mohammad Saqib, Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai and Sheikh Mohammad Khalid.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: Through 27 March to 28 March 2022, Akhundzada instructed the Council of Ministers to implement a new round of restrictions. He also ordered a ban on foreign broadcasts from being issued in Afghanistan, and instructed the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice to enforce gender segregation of public parks, prevent women from boarding aircraft if unaccompanied by a male chaperone, to bar male civil servants from going to work if they are not wearing a turban or sporting a full beard, and ban the use of mobile phones in universities. He also issued a decree with instructions on the same day to the security forces, ordering them to avoid hiring and deploying minors.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 3 April 2022, Akhundzada signed a decree banning the cultivation of opium in Afghanistan, with any violators being treated "according to sharia law." The order and transportation of other narcotics was also banned.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 29 April 2022, Akhundzada urged the world to recognise the Taliban government in a message ahead of the Eid holidays.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 7 May 2022, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice published a decree personally approved by Akhundzada, requiring all women in Afghanistan to cover their entire bodies except for their eyes when in public, with the burqa being the recommended covering.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 21 July 2022, Akhundzada issued a decree banning criticism or dissension against the Islamic Emirate among the public. It stated that “It is not permissible to make false accusations against officials or to criticize them…”


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 14 November 2022, he issued orders to the judiciary to fully enforce Hudud and Qisas (corporal) punishments if crimes meet such standards. This led to concern that the widespread usage of flogging, amputation, and stoning as punishments could resume. A week later, twelve people were publicly flogged in Logar Province, in what was seen as an implementation of Akhundzada's order. This was the first confirmed use of the punishment since the Taliban's return to power.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: Akhundzada is seen as a religiously ultraconservative figure and ideologue within the Taliban. According to a report from AP, he adheres to Pashtunwali and Deobandism. He is said to oppose girls' education in Afghanistan, reportedly vetoing a plan to return girls to secondary education by March 23. He also issued and approved a decree on May 7, requiring women to cover their hair and bodies from the eyes down while in public, and not to leave their residence unless necessary. He also oversaw the implementation of tighter media restrictions, banning the use of mobile phones in post-secondary education and foreign language broadcasts. This is said to be part of an effort to return to the Taliban’s style of governance from 1996 to 2001, with Akhundzada modelling his leadership on that of Mullah Omar, the Taliban’s founder.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: He is said to be part of an ultraconservative clerical faction, which maintains outsized influence on the movement’s decision making. This faction includes Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai, Vice and Virtue Minister Sheikh Mohammad Khalid, and Hajj and Religious Affairs Minister Noor Mohammad Saqib.


title: Hibatullah Akhundzada

text: On 1 July 2022, at a religious gathering in Kabul, he slammed the international community for "interfering" in his "Islamic" governance, warning that non-Muslim countries would always be opposed to a pure Islamic state. He effectively ruled out an inclusive government. In an apparent rebuke to international calls to ease restrictions on women in Afghanistan, he said "I am not here to fulfill your [foreigners'] wishes, nor are they acceptable to me. I cannot compromise on Sharia to work with you or even move a step forward." He added, "You have used the Mother of All Bombs, and you are welcome to use even the atomic bomb against us, because nothing can scare us into taking any step that is against Islam or Sharia." However, he did not discuss issues such as girls' education in his hour-long speech.


title: Turing test

text: The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1950, is a test of a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human. Turing proposed that a human evaluator would judge natural language conversations between a human and a machine designed to generate human-like responses. The evaluator would be aware that one of the two partners in conversation was a machine, and all participants would be separated from one another. The conversation would be limited to a text-only channel, such as a computer keyboard and screen, so the result would not depend on the machine's ability to render words as speech. If the evaluator could not reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine would be said to have passed the test. The test results would not depend on the machine's ability to give correct answers to questions, only on how closely its answers resembled those a human would give.


title: Turing test

text: The test was introduced by Turing in his 1950 paper "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" while working at the University of Manchester. It opens with the words: "I propose to consider the question, 'Can machines think? Because "thinking" is difficult to define, Turing chooses to "replace the question by another, which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words." Turing describes the new form of the problem in terms of a three-person game called the "imitation game", in which an interrogator asks questions of a man and a woman in another room in order to determine the correct sex of the two players. Turing's new question is: "Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the "imitation game"?" This question, Turing believed, was one that could actually be answered. In the remainder of the paper, he argued against all the major objections to the proposition that "machines can think".


title: Turing test

text: Since Turing introduced his test, it has been both highly influential and widely criticised, and has become an important concept in the philosophy of artificial intelligence. Some of its criticisms, such as John Searle's Chinese room, are themselves controversial.


title: Turing test

text: The question of whether it is possible for machines to think has a long history, which is firmly entrenched in the distinction between dualist and materialist views of the mind. René Descartes prefigures aspects of the Turing test in his 1637 "Discourse on the Method" when he writes:


title: Turing test

text: Here Descartes notes that automata are capable of responding to human interactions but argues that such automata cannot respond appropriately to things said in their presence in the way that any human can. Descartes therefore prefigures the Turing test by defining the insufficiency of appropriate linguistic response as that which separates the human from the automaton. Descartes fails to consider the possibility that future automata might be able to overcome such insufficiency, and so does not propose the Turing test as such, even if he prefigures its conceptual framework and criterion.


title: Turing test

text: Denis Diderot formulates in his 1746 book "Pensées philosophiques" a Turing-test criterion, though with the important implicit limiting assumption maintained, of the participants being natural living beings, rather than considering created artifacts:


title: Turing test

text: This does not mean he agrees with this, but that it was already a common argument of materialists at that time.


title: Turing test

text: According to dualism, the mind is non-physical (or, at the very least, has non-physical properties) and, therefore, cannot be explained in purely physical terms. According to materialism, the mind can be explained physically, which leaves open the possibility of minds that are produced artificially.


title: Turing test

text: In 1936, philosopher Alfred Ayer considered the standard philosophical question of other minds: how do we know that other people have the same conscious experiences that we do? In his book, "Language, Truth and Logic", Ayer suggested a protocol to distinguish between a conscious man and an unconscious machine: "The only ground I can have for asserting that an object which appears to be conscious is not really a conscious being, but only a dummy or a machine, is that it fails to satisfy one of the empirical tests by which the presence or absence of consciousness is determined." (This suggestion is very similar to the Turing test, but is concerned with consciousness rather than intelligence. Moreover, it is not certain that Ayer's popular philosophical classic was familiar to Turing.) In other words, a thing is not conscious if it fails the consciousness test.


title: Turing test

text: Researchers in the United Kingdom had been exploring "machine intelligence" for up to ten years prior to the founding of the field of artificial intelligence (AI) research in 1956. It was a common topic among the members of the Ratio Club, an informal group of British cybernetics and electronics researchers that included Alan Turing.


title: Turing test

text: Turing, in particular, had been running the notion of machine intelligence since at least 1941 and one of the earliest-known mentions of "computer intelligence" was made by him in 1947. In Turing's report, "Intelligent Machinery", he investigated "the question of whether or not it is possible for machinery to show intelligent behaviour" and, as part of that investigation, proposed what may be considered the forerunner to his later tests:


title: Turing test

text: It is not difficult to devise a paper machine which will play a not very bad game of chess. Now get three men A, B and C as subjects for the experiment. A and C are to be rather poor chess players, B is the operator who works the paper machine. ... Two rooms are used with some arrangement for communicating moves, and a game is played between C and either A or the paper machine. C may find it quite difficult to tell which he is playing.


title: Turing test

text: "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" (1950) was the first published paper by Turing to focus exclusively on machine intelligence. Turing begins the 1950 paper with the claim, "I propose to consider the question 'Can machines think? As he highlights, the traditional approach to such a question is to start with definitions, defining both the terms "machine" and "intelligence". Turing chooses not to do so; instead he replaces the question with a new one, "which is closely related to it and is expressed in relatively unambiguous words." In essence he proposes to change the question from "Can machines think?" to "Can machines do what we (as thinking entities) can do?" The advantage of the new question, Turing argues, is that it draws "a fairly sharp line between the physical and intellectual capacities of a man."


title: Turing test

text: To demonstrate this approach Turing proposes a test inspired by a party game, known as the "imitation game", in which a man and a woman go into separate rooms and guests try to tell them apart by writing a series of questions and reading the typewritten answers sent back. In this game, both the man and the woman aim to convince the guests that they are the other. (Huma Shah argues that this two-human version of the game was presented by Turing only to introduce the reader to the machine-human question-answer test.) Turing described his new version of the game as follows:


title: Turing test

text: We now ask the question, "What will happen when a machine takes the part of A in this game?" Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game is played like this as he does when the game is played between a man and a woman? These questions replace our original, "Can machines think?"


title: Turing test

text: Later in the paper, Turing suggests an "equivalent" alternative formulation involving a judge conversing only with a computer and a man. While neither of these formulations precisely matches the version of the Turing test that is more generally known today, he proposed a third in 1952. In this version, which Turing discussed in a BBC radio broadcast, a jury asks questions of a computer and the role of the computer is to make a significant proportion of the jury believe that it is really a man.


title: Turing test

text: Turing's paper considered nine putative objections, which include all the major arguments against artificial intelligence that have been raised in the years since the paper was published (see "Computing Machinery and Intelligence").


title: Turing test

text: In 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum created a program which appeared to pass the Turing test. The program, known as ELIZA, worked by examining a user's typed comments for keywords. If a keyword is found, a rule that transforms the user's comments is applied, and the resulting sentence is returned. If a keyword is not found, ELIZA responds either with a generic riposte or by repeating one of the earlier comments. In addition, Weizenbaum developed ELIZA to replicate the behaviour of a Rogerian psychotherapist, allowing ELIZA to be "free to assume the pose of knowing almost nothing of the real world." With these techniques, Weizenbaum's program was able to fool some people into believing that they were talking to a real person, with some subjects being "very hard to convince that ELIZA [...] is "not" human." Thus, ELIZA is claimed by some to be one of the programs (perhaps the first) able to pass the Turing test, even though this view is highly contentious (see Naïveté of interrogators below).


title: Turing test

text: Kenneth Colby created PARRY in 1972, a program described as "ELIZA with attitude". It attempted to model the behaviour of a paranoid schizophrenic, using a similar (if more advanced) approach to that employed by Weizenbaum. To validate the work, PARRY was tested in the early 1970s using a variation of the Turing test. A group of experienced psychiatrists analysed a combination of real patients and computers running PARRY through teleprinters. Another group of 33 psychiatrists were shown transcripts of the conversations. The two groups were then asked to identify which of the "patients" were human and which were computer programs. The psychiatrists were able to make the correct identification only 52 percent of the time – a figure consistent with random guessing.


title: Turing test

text: In the 21st century, versions of these programs (now known as "chatbots") continue to fool people. "CyberLover", a malware program, preys on Internet users by convincing them to "reveal information about their identities or to lead them to visit a web site that will deliver malicious content to their computers". The program has emerged as a "Valentine-risk" flirting with people "seeking relationships online in order to collect their personal data".


title: Turing test

text: John Searle's 1980 paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs" proposed the "Chinese room" thought experiment and argued that the Turing test could not be used to determine if a machine could think. Searle noted that software (such as ELIZA) could pass the Turing test simply by manipulating symbols of which they had no understanding. Without understanding, they could not be described as "thinking" in the same sense people did. Therefore, Searle concluded, the Turing test could not prove that machines could think. Much like the Turing test itself, Searle's argument has been both widely criticised and endorsed.


title: Turing test

text: Arguments such as Searle's and others working on the philosophy of mind sparked off a more intense debate about the nature of intelligence, the possibility of intelligent machines and the value of the Turing test that continued through the 1980s and 1990s.


title: Turing test

text: The Loebner Prize provides an annual platform for practical Turing tests with the first competition held in November 1991. It is underwritten by Hugh Loebner. The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in Massachusetts, United States, organised the prizes up to and including the 2003 contest. As Loebner described it, one reason the competition was created is to advance the state of AI research, at least in part, because no one had taken steps to implement the Turing test despite 40 years of discussing it.


title: Turing test

text: The first Loebner Prize competition in 1991 led to a renewed discussion of the viability of the Turing test and the value of pursuing it, in both the popular press and academia. The first contest was won by a mindless program with no identifiable intelligence that managed to fool naïve interrogators into making the wrong identification. This highlighted several of the shortcomings of the Turing test (discussed below): The winner won, at least in part, because it was able to "imitate human typing errors"; the unsophisticated interrogators were easily fooled; and some researchers in AI have been led to feel that the test is merely a distraction from more fruitful research.


title: Turing test

text: The silver (text only) and gold (audio and visual) prizes have never been won. However, the competition has awarded the bronze medal every year for the computer system that, in the judges' opinions, demonstrates the "most human" conversational behaviour among that year's entries. Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity (A.L.I.C.E.) has won the bronze award on three occasions in recent times (2000, 2001, 2004). Learning AI Jabberwacky won in 2005 and 2006.


title: Turing test

text: The Loebner Prize tests conversational intelligence; winners are typically chatterbot programs, or Artificial Conversational Entities (ACE)s. Early Loebner Prize rules restricted conversations: Each entry and hidden-human conversed on a single topic, thus the interrogators were restricted to one line of questioning per entity interaction. The restricted conversation rule was lifted for the 1995 Loebner Prize. Interaction duration between judge and entity has varied in Loebner Prizes. In Loebner 2003, at the University of Surrey, each interrogator was allowed five minutes to interact with an entity, machine or hidden-human. Between 2004 and 2007, the interaction time allowed in Loebner Prizes was more than twenty minutes.


title: Turing test

text: Saul Traiger argues that there are at least three primary versions of the Turing test, two of which are offered in "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" and one that he describes as the "Standard Interpretation". While there is some debate regarding whether the "Standard Interpretation" is that described by Turing or, instead, based on a misreading of his paper, these three versions are not regarded as equivalent, and their strengths and weaknesses are distinct.


title: Turing test

text: Huma Shah points out that Turing himself was concerned with whether a machine could think and was providing a simple method to examine this: through human-machine question-answer sessions. Shah argues there is one imitation game which Turing described could be practicalised in two different ways: a) one-to-one interrogator-machine test, and b) simultaneous comparison of a machine with a human, both questioned in parallel by an interrogator. Since the Turing test is a test of indistinguishability in performance capacity, the verbal version generalises naturally to all of human performance capacity, verbal as well as nonverbal (robotic).


title: Turing test

text: Turing's original article describes a simple party game involving three players. Player A is a man, player B is a woman and player C (who plays the role of the interrogator) is of either gender. In the imitation game, player C is unable to see either player A or player B, and can communicate with them only through written notes. By asking questions of player A and player B, player C tries to determine which of the two is the man and which is the woman. Player A's role is to trick the interrogator into making the wrong decision, while player B attempts to assist the interrogator in making the right one.


title: Turing test

text: "What will happen when a machine takes the part of A in this game? Will the interrogator decide wrongly as often when the game is played like this as he does when the game is played between a man and a woman?" These questions replace our original, "Can machines think?"


title: Turing test

text: The second version appeared later in Turing's 1950 paper. Similar to the original imitation game test, the role of player A is performed by a computer. However, the role of player B is performed by a man rather than a woman.


title: Turing test

text: Let us fix our attention on one particular digital computer "C." Is it true that by modifying this computer to have an adequate storage, suitably increasing its speed of action, and providing it with an appropriate programme, "C" can be made to play satisfactorily the part of A in the imitation game, the part of B being taken by a man?


title: Turing test

text: In this version, both player A (the computer) and player B are trying to trick the interrogator into making an incorrect decision.


title: Turing test

text: Common understanding has it that the purpose of the Turing test is not specifically to determine whether a computer is able to fool an interrogator into believing that it is a human, but rather whether a computer could "imitate" a human. While there is some dispute whether this interpretation was intended by Turing, Sterrett believes that it was and thus conflates the second version with this one, while others, such as Traiger, do not – this has nevertheless led to what can be viewed as the "standard interpretation." In this version, player A is a computer and player B a person of either sex. The role of the interrogator is not to determine which is male and which is female, but which is a computer and which is a human. The fundamental issue with the standard interpretation is that the interrogator cannot differentiate which responder is human, and which is machine. There are issues about duration, but the standard interpretation generally considers this limitation as something that should be reasonable.


title: Turing test

text: Controversy has arisen over which of the alternative formulations of the test Turing intended. Sterrett argues that two distinct tests can be extracted from his 1950 paper and that, "pace" Turing's remark, they are not equivalent. The test that employs the party game and compares frequencies of success is referred to as the "Original Imitation Game Test", whereas the test consisting of a human judge conversing with a human and a machine is referred to as the "Standard Turing Test", noting that Sterrett equates this with the "standard interpretation" rather than the second version of the imitation game. Sterrett agrees that the standard Turing test (STT) has the problems that its critics cite but feels that, in contrast, the original imitation game test (OIG test) so defined is immune to many of them, due to a crucial difference: Unlike the STT, it does not make similarity to human performance the criterion, even though it employs human performance in setting a criterion for machine intelligence. A man can fail the OIG test, but it is argued that it is a virtue of a test of intelligence that failure indicates a lack of resourcefulness: The OIG test requires the resourcefulness associated with intelligence and not merely "simulation of human conversational behaviour". The general structure of the OIG test could even be used with non-verbal versions of imitation games.


title: Turing test

text: Still other writers have interpreted Turing as proposing that the imitation game itself is the test, without specifying how to take into account Turing's statement that the test that he proposed using the party version of the imitation game is based upon a criterion of comparative frequency of success in that imitation game, rather than a capacity to succeed at one round of the game.


title: Turing test

text: Saygin has suggested that maybe the original game is a way of proposing a less biased experimental design as it hides the participation of the computer. The imitation game also includes a "social hack" not found in the standard interpretation, as in the game both computer and male human are required to play as pretending to be someone they are not.


title: Turing test

text: A crucial piece of any laboratory test is that there should be a control. Turing never makes clear whether the interrogator in his tests is aware that one of the participants is a computer. He states only that player A is to be replaced with a machine, not that player C is to be made aware of this replacement. When Colby, FD Hilf, S Weber and AD Kramer tested PARRY, they did so by assuming that the interrogators did not need to know that one or more of those being interviewed was a computer during the interrogation. As Ayse Saygin, Peter Swirski, and others have highlighted, this makes a big difference to the implementation and outcome of the test. An experimental study looking at Gricean maxim violations using transcripts of Loebner's one-to-one (interrogator-hidden interlocutor) Prize for AI contests between 1994 and 1999, Ayse Saygin found significant differences between the responses of participants who knew and did not know about computers being involved.


title: Turing test

text: The power and appeal of the Turing test derives from its simplicity. The philosophy of mind, psychology, and modern neuroscience have been unable to provide definitions of "intelligence" and "thinking" that are sufficiently precise and general to be applied to machines. Without such definitions, the central questions of the philosophy of artificial intelligence cannot be answered. The Turing test, even if imperfect, at least provides something that can actually be measured. As such, it is a pragmatic attempt to answer a difficult philosophical question.


title: Turing test

text: The format of the test allows the interrogator to give the machine a wide variety of intellectual tasks. Turing wrote that "the question and answer method seems to be suitable for introducing almost any one of the fields of human endeavour that we wish to include." John Haugeland adds that "understanding the words is not enough; you have to understand the "topic" as well."


title: Turing test

text: To pass a well-designed Turing test, the machine must use natural language, reason, have knowledge and learn. The test can be extended to include video input, as well as a "hatch" through which objects can be passed: this would force the machine to demonstrate skilled use of well designed vision and robotics as well. Together, these represent almost all of the major problems that artificial intelligence research would like to solve.


title: Turing test

text: The Feigenbaum test is designed to take advantage of the broad range of topics available to a Turing test. It is a limited form of Turing's question-answer game which compares the machine against the abilities of experts in specific fields such as literature or chemistry. IBM's Watson machine achieved success in a man versus machine television quiz show of human knowledge, "Jeopardy!"


title: Turing test

text: As a Cambridge honours graduate in mathematics, Turing might have been expected to propose a test of computer intelligence requiring expert knowledge in some highly technical field, and thus anticipating a more recent approach to the subject. Instead, as already noted, the test which he described in his seminal 1950 paper requires the computer to be able to compete successfully in a common party game, and this by performing as well as the typical man in answering a series of questions so as to pretend convincingly to be the woman contestant.


title: Turing test

text: Given the status of human sexual dimorphism as one of the most ancient of subjects, it is thus implicit in the above scenario that the questions to be answered will involve neither specialised factual knowledge nor information processing technique. The challenge for the computer, rather, will be to demonstrate empathy for the role of the female, and to demonstrate as well a characteristic aesthetic sensibility—both of which qualities are on display in this snippet of dialogue which Turing has imagined:


title: Turing test

text: When Turing does introduce some specialised knowledge into one of his imagined dialogues, the subject is not maths or electronics, but poetry: