An Invitation to Play

Even if you're not a broke college student, you can become a participant in this intriguing research study. An invitation to play in an academic game of "Who's Telling the Truth?". At Georgia Institute of Technology, students have created a game that will help them analyze online chat room cultures. They are hoping to unveil clues that will help the "Average Joe" chat room participant be able to sort through all the cyber fronts and determine the true identity of their online counterpart. Well, maybe true identity would be too big of a leap, to start with, the focus is on gender.

"Here at the Georgia Institute of Technology, we have created a game to help us understand issues of online identity. In this environment, which we call The Turing Game, a panel of users all pretend to be a member of some group, such as women. Some of the users, who are women, are trying to prove that fact to their audience. Others are men, trying to masquerade as women. An audience of both genders tries to discover whom the imposters are, by asking questions and analyzing the panel members' answers. Games can cover aspects of gender, race, or any other cultural marker of the users' choice."(Adapted from the Turing Game web site)

Kristen Philipkoski of Wired reports on the game in her article, "Unmasking Chat Room Imposters". Philipkoski writes, "In one Turing Game, men trying to portray women answered the question: 'What's your best beauty tip?' Nicky replied: 'Mix your own concealer with Oxy10.' Rhonda said: 'Always blot your lipstick with a piece of tissue.' The real woman? Nicky."

Alan Turing, in the 1950's, developed an imitation game that is the basis for this updated game that utilizes the Internet instead of more basic tools of deception (such as pencil and paper). The game is comprised of multiple players located throughout the world. Ages of participants range from 18-89. If you are interested in becoming involved in the "Turing Game" you can register online at: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/elc/turing. You will need access to Windows 95, 98, or NT4.0 and the Internet. Results of each game are promptly provided on the Georgia Tech site. I invite you and anyone else you know to register to play the game and then get back to me... start a discussion and let's see if you can spot the phoney!

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