The test is known as the MMPI-2 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory).Developed as a specialized psychological test for the measurement of psychopathology, the MMPI has been the preferred psychosocial diagnostic instrument among clinicians for the past 50 years.

Originally published in 1940 by Hathaway and McKinley, MMPI has been implemented in many clinical and non-clinical contexts, including medical, educational, medicolegal and organizational settings. A restandardisation and partial revision of the MMPI resulted in the publication of the MMPI-2 in 1989.

GAC (Generic Artificial Consciousness -- pronounced "Jack") is the artificial personality being developed at the Mindpixel Digital Mind Modeling Project with the collaboration of nearly 40,000 Internet users from more than 200 countries worldwide.

GAC will be evaluated using the MMPI-2 over the next several months to assess its learning of human consensus experience from the Mindpixel project's large and diverse group of users from many different cultures.

The test will be supervised and interpreted by Dr. Robert Epstein, one of the world's leading experts on human and machine behavior.

"Nothing like this has ever been attempted," said Epstein. "We're evaluating thousands of people worldwide as if they were one collective individual."

"We don't know if it is possible to build a normal personality out of millions of little pieces. This experiment will tell us how reasonable the idea is," Epstein added.

In the nearly one year the project has been online, Mindpixel's Internet contributors have made nearly 8 million individual measurements of more than 355,000 individual items of human consensus experience.

The project's organizers hope that they will gain enough information by the time the project's data collection phase is complete (2010) to build a highly accurate statistical model of an average human mind which they hope can be used as a foundation for true artificial consciousness.

One of the world's leading experts on human and machine behavior, Robert Epstein received his doctorate in psychology at Harvard University in 1981. He is Editor-in-Chief of Psychology Today magazine and University Research Professor at United States International University in San Diego.

He is also the founder and Director Emeritus of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies in Massachusetts and Adjunct Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University. He was also the former director of the famed Loebner Prize competition in Artificial Intelligence.

The Mindpixel Digital Mind Modeling Project was launched on July 6, 2000. It is the world's largest Artificial Intelligence effort, with nearly 40,000 contributing members in more than 200 countries.

[Contact: Dr. Robert Epstein, Christopher McKinstry]

02-Jul-2001