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From: thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H. Thornley)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Searle, Strong AI, and Chinese Rooms
Message-ID: <1990Dec4.222704.10709@cs.umn.edu>
Date: 4 Dec 90 22:27:04 GMT
References: <1990Nov15.204949.12075@Solbourne.COM> <1990Nov19.191925.28285@cs.umn.edu> <15798@venera.isi.edu> <1990Nov30.231103.17041@cs.umn.edu> <15878@venera.isi.edu>
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis - CSCI Dept.
Lines: 53

In article <15878@venera.isi.edu> smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes:
>In article <1990Nov30.231103.17041@cs.umn.edu> thornley@cs.umn.edu (David H.
>Thornley) writes:
>>
>>[Discussion of exactly what Turing wrote.]
>
>[More discussion, including a longer quotation.]
>
>Thus, having told his story about the imitation game, Turing still dismisses
>the prospect of pondering his original question as basically a waste of time.
>As I have said before, I am inclined to agree with him, leaving the question
>to philosophers while the engineers go off and try to do something useful.

If you mean that you'd be impressed at a system that would pass the
Turing test, and wouldn't start arguing that it isn't "really"
understanding (Turing did consider that question in his paper),
we can agree.  Trying to figure out exactly what Turing meant is
difficult and somewhat pointless.  I still maintain that it is
an operational definition for intelligence, and question any
definition of intelligence that disagrees with it.  (What is a
simulation of intelligence?  What is an image of a bright light?
Did I ever tell you about the time I was frazzled at work, and
asked myself how I would solve a problem if I could actually
concentrate on it, and got the right answer? :-)

More seriously, if Turing was claiming the question, "Can machines
think?" was simply a waste of time, why did he discuss objections
like "It isn't really conscious," or "It doesn't have a sense of humor/
sense of ethics/enjoyment of hot fudge sundaes?"
>
>On the other hand, David is quite right that a computer which is mistaken for
>a human is not necessarily a "winner" at Turing's original imitation game.  I
>would guess, however, that he would have been content to accept an example of
>ELIZA being confused for a human as a reasonable alternative solution to his
>original problem.  After all, the scenario is not that different:  Humans are
>communicating through typewriters, and the question is one of whether or not
>a computer could be successfully substituted for a human.  (One of the factors
>Turing probably did not count on was a tendency of people who use computers too
>much to start talking like them, thus giving the computer an added edge on
>winning the game!)
>
I don't think it would have satisfied Turing, and it certainly doesn't
satisfy me.  I require (a) that the interrogator know that he or she
may be communicating with a computer, and (b) that the interrogator
have a real human to compare the computer with.  Also, I require that
the human used for comparison be adult, intelligent, educated, literate
in the language used for the experiment, and fully able to use the
communication mechanism in use.  Any other specifications, it seems to
me, allow too many abuses.  (Then there was the time I ran into an
inter-terminal talk program, and assumed it was something like
Eliza for about five back-and-forth messages.  Live and maybe learn.)

DHT