An Ideological Turing Test: Delegates’ Understanding of Their Opponents

• In Event: Parties and Ideologies in American Politics

Abstract

The notion of an ideological divide dominates American politics, but the nature of that divide is less clear. Ideological Americans might disagree sharply, or they might not even understand one another. This paper applies an Ideological Turing Test to delegates at a number of state conventions. The test follows the logic of the Turing Test in computer science. Alan Turing proposed that any true artificial intelligence would be able to fool an interlocutor that it is in fact human. Similarly, we might think that an ideologue who really understands their opponents would be able to fool them into thinking they agree. We thus asked respondents to describe the views of liberals and conservatives on a number of issues, and then presented these open-ended items to acknowledged ideologues, who judged their accuracy.

Author

• Hans Noel, Georgetown University