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From: hearn@claris.com (Bob Hearn)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Test: opinions on an idea
Message-ID: <12083@claris.com>
Date: 14 May 91 20:46:15 GMT
References: <1991May13.133711.102@athena.mit.edu>
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In article <1991May13.133711.102@athena.mit.edu> mlevin@jade.tufts.edu writes:
>
>    I'd like to hear opinions on the following thought I had, about
>the Turing Test. 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). They then make an enormous
>'game-tree' of all possible conversations in English (taking 
>into account randomizing elements, repeat questions,
>etc.), and make an idiot box that simply accepts inputs from an
>interrogator, and, by direct table look-up, spits out answers, which
>are good enough to pass the Turing Test.
>
> ...
>
>Mike Levin
>

I think this scenario is a little too far-fetched to be believable.
I can conceive of the fast storage and retrieval of arbitrary amounts
of information, but what exactly do you mean by 'all possible
conversations?'  How is this information to be generated?  How long
a conversation must be supported?
Assuming that all these questions can be answered satisfactorily, 
then yes, the system is intelligent.  BUT the requirements for
answering them satisfactorily are such that viewing the system
as operating by table-lookup would be missing the point.
After all, I operate according to the laws of physics.  That means
that, starting with a very large (but much smaller than yours)
database of particles (it would probably be more feasible to model
me at the cell level), and following a set of rules in theory no
more difficult than table lookup, you would get a system which
behaved just like me.  (Quantum physicists may debate this, but
most people believe that quantum phenomena are not relevant in
biological systems.)  But the intelligence in the system lies
in the database itself, not in the lookup mechanism.
You may argue that your database is static, while mine is dynamic,
in that my rules modify it.  But then I can make a database just
like yours, containing an entry for each distinguishable state I
can be in, with transfer indices based on sensory input.
I argue that this model is identical to yours, and also identical
to me.  So it is intelligent, but you have to view the system
from the right angle for it to make sense.

Bob Hearn


  If we pick, arbitrarily, an hour,
then I think that (1) the game tree could not conceivably be generated
by humans, implying the existence of some artificial intelligence
capable of creating the tree, and (2) I would not be satisfied that
it was intelligent anyway.  What good is something that is only 
intelligent for an hour, then loses its memory?
If we assume, instead, tha