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From: vdasigi@thor.wright.edu (Venu Dasigi)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Value of turing test?
Message-ID: <1353@thor.wright.EDU>
Date: 23 Aug 90 19:39:37 GMT
References: <14942@csli.Stanford.EDU>
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Reply-To: vdasigi@thor.wright.edu
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From article <14942@csli.Stanford.EDU>, by weyand@csli.Stanford.EDU (Chris Weyand):
> In <2356@eisvxe.moundst.mn.org> cr_kempke@eisvxe.moundst.mn.org (Travelling SMU GURU) writes:
> 
>>	Actually, I have an even larger problem with the Turing Test:  I don't
>>believe most PEOPLE could pass it.   When most of us converse (verbally), we
>>stutter, make mistakes, lie, misunderstand, fail to communicate, etc. etc.
> 
> These points don't have anything to do with the TT.  Would you label some one
> as un-intelligent just because they...ummmm...couldn't....ummm...well, you know
> ....uuhhhh...speak without mistakes?

I am entering the debate in the middle, so I may be a little out of
context. Not much, I hope.

While one might interpret the Turing test as a test/definition of
intelligence, it seems to me to be actually a test of the "humanness"
of the subject (and in this sense, all normal people should be able to
pass the test), and I believe most of the current discussion supports
this view. On the assumption that intelligence may be equated with being
human, one could say Turing test offers a test of intelligence. This
argument would still be more or less valid even if both the subject
(that is, the machine being evaluated) and the human being (say, a man)
it is being compared with simulate another intelligent person (say, a
woman).

On a related note, I remember a similar discussion about a year or so
ago, from which I excerpt the following quote from Drew McDermott:

"Turing's test can never hope to provide a NECESSARY condition for
intelligence, but only a SUFFICIENT one."

I believe I quoted him correctly, because I had written it down as
soon as I saw it. I may have copied it incorrectly, because it appears
to me that the quote makes more sense if the words NECESSARY and SUFFICIENT
were interchanged. Comments?

--- Venu Dasigi (vdasigi@cs.wright.edu)
Venu Dasigi      vdasigi@cs.wright.edu
Dept. of CS&Eng, Wright State U, 3171 Research Blvd, Dayton, OH 45420