Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!munnari.oz.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!latcs1!jane
From: jane@latcs2.lat.oz.au (Jane Philcox)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Test: opinions on an idea
Message-ID: <1991May17.064316.5559@latcs2.lat.oz.au>
Date: 17 May 91 06:43:16 GMT
References: <1991May13.133711.102@athena.mit.edu> <12083@claris.com>
Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia
Lines: 50

In article <1991May13.133711.102@athena.mit.edu> mlevin@jade.tufts.edu writes:

>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 ... 

Lets start by generating all the possible sentences in English.  

Take the Oxford English Dictionary (sorry to all you users of Webster, but I 
don't know it so well), which is now, due to its size, only available on 
microfiche and probably other forms of compact storage.  The last time it was 
printed on paper that I saw, it was, I think, 24 very large volumes.  Somewhat 
larger than most average encyclopaedias.  We'll use that for our vocabulary.

Suppose we have a _really_ efficient natural language generator, using a truly
representative model of English syntax, which in spite of the best efforts of
the linguists, over a number of years, does not currently exist.  By truly
representative, I mean something that can generate _every_ English sentence
which would be considered grammatical by some native English speaker somewhere.

And, as someone else posted, have on hand all the material in the universe to
use to build your physical memory structures out of.

Now, start generating, and adding your sentences to some structure which, when 
complete, will allow you to start tacking together all those possible 
conversations.  

I suspect that by the time this task , which is considered theoretically 
impossible by the linguists, is complete, you will find that you have taken so 
long that many of the sentences you have generated will be considered 
marginally grammatical at best, and quite unacceptably archaic, and the 
language itself will have acquired millions more words for you to play with, 
using the 20,001 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, or whatever it's 
called by then - probably something quite unrecognizable to us.

On the whole, I think it might be easier, and definitely more profitable, to
build something that does it the way we do: by knowing the words, knowing what
they mean (that's the hard bit!) and knowing how to tack them together into
meaningful structures.  The only real problem here (:-)) is that it would 
probably take half a universe of material to store all that you need to know 
about the world to make a meaningful conversation.  And I suspect that by the
time you've built something that can do that, you will have built something
that is so self-evidently intelligent, that people will wonder why the Turing 
Test was once thought necessary, or even useful.

Regards, Jane.
-- 

           A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.