Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!media-lab.media.mit.edu!minsky
From: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU (Marvin Minsky)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Test: opinions on an idea
Message-ID: <5839@media-lab.media.mit.edu.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Date: 13 May 91 22:30:26 GMT
References: <1991May13.133711.102@athena.mit.edu>
Reply-To: minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky)
Distribution: usa
Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge MA
Lines: 34


In article <1991May13.133711.102@athena.mit.edu> mlevin@jade.tufts.edu writes:
> Start off with a story. Suppose in X years, physics
>gets to such a point where very fast storage and retrieval of
>arbitrary amounts of information is easy (imagine some sort of
>hyperdimensional memory, or something). [...] and, by direct table
>look-up, spits out answers, which are good enough to pass the Turing
Test.

Then you can conclude that the machine has passed that Turing test.
Nothing more.

>Given that, what is to stop an opponent of AI (like a
>dualist, for example) from saying the same thing about any
>currently-feasable AI project? i.e., that it exploits advances in
>computer science to produce a good simulation, but really has nothing
>to do with the question of primary consciousness? 

There is indeed no known force or argument that can stop a dualist.
This is why they occupy all the powerful positions in our societies.

Seriously, passing the Turing test is merely something that (according
to Turing) which is likely to convince a person that another object is
sentient. Clearly that has nothing whatever to do with whether that
other thing is actually sentient, but only assesses the gullibility of
that observer.  The real question is whether the observer itself is
sentient.  And in my view, that question is meanlingless, because
"sentience" is a complicated social-psychological relation between
four entities.  That is, it only makes sense when used in the form "A
emits a signal that causes B to emit statements of the form 'C regards
D to be sentient'"

Now you might retort that this makes the term "sentient" too complex,
obscure, and elaborate to have any practical use.  Precisely.