Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!caen!math.lsa.umich.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!gatech!ncsuvx!news From: fostel@eos.ncsu.edu (Gary Fostel) Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy Subject: Re: Searle's Chinese Room Keywords: Strong AI, Turing test Message-ID: <1990Nov16.171041.14144@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> Date: 16 Nov 90 17:10:41 GMT References: <16197@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> <3952@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> <10297@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> Sender: news@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (USENET News System) Reply-To: fostel@eos.ncsu.edu (Gary Fostel) Organization: North Carolina State University Lines: 40 I always wondered why people spent so much time argueing about the Turing Test when it is so poorly defined. (Or perhaps that's why it can go on and on). Consider a modification for a chess playing version of the Turing test. (We could use Chinese Chess if that would help :-) My wife would probably be greatly impressed by almost any computer chess playing program and would be forced to conclude that BY HER STANDARDS, the computer was passing any reasonable test she could construe of the machines ability to play chess *as* a human would. But of course, she knows very little of chess or algorithms for chess and implementations of same on computers. I know a bit more about each and I would be able to detect some properties that might give it away, e.g. very constant response time, or pathological weaknesses in certain features if its play, e.g. with non-book openings or cleverly arranged combinations of various lengths to detect its search depth etc. Yes, I know there are chess programs that would pass these tests, but there are people more expert than me who would be able to contruct more useful tests for these "smarter" programs. The only well defined "test", whether it be for chess playing or more generally, in the Turing test, for intelligence, would be that the machine could fool EVERYBODY who was observing. This is a very strong test, much stronger than the usual Turing test I believe, and I'm not sure many REAL people could convince everyone else that they were intelligent humans. Perhaps none could! So ... if I try to make the Turing test into a definite, well defined test, it is not clear that ANYTHING could ever pass it. There's no doubt that the Turing test is great sport, but when you come right down to it, it is not very useful. If I follow this one step, it means that the Chinese Room device is also not very useful since it exists merely to weaken another device (the Turing Test) which can be weakened far more without recourse to the Chinese Room -- which muddies the situation rather than clarifying it. ----GaryFostel---- Department of Computer Science North Carolina State University