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From: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Gordon Joly)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Test: opinions on an idea
Message-ID: <1575@ucl-cs.uucp>
Date: 25 May 91 16:38:14 GMT
Sender: news@cs.ucl.ac.uk
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In this thread Kuhn's work has been cited. Popper (?) has suggested
that physics is method of constructing models that describe the
physical world. The model and reality are always distinct. The model
approaches reality, as Newton was "falsified" when Einstein came
along. Special Relativity improves on Newton and with Quantum
Mechanics gave some predictive power, eg muon decay. Now superstring
theory is poised to make General Relativity and Quantum Theory
"false"; well it will unify the two, since a Quantised General
Relativity Theory has eluded scientists.

If we form AI models, they will only be approximations to (any) real
intelligence. This will never change, now matter how good they are.

So the Turing Test will always fail, given time. However, the Test
could prove of some use in the way that Eliza (Doctor) did - "you can
fool some of the people some of the time".

The Turing Test Quotient (TTQ) is a metric based on the amount of time
before 1000 (say) people can spot it is a computer. This will be a log
scale measure. Within an average of 5 mins is 1 unit, with an average
of 50 mins will be 2 units and so on. 

I guess a 3 unit computer might be of some real use.

____

Gordon Joly                                       +44 71 387 7050 ext 3716
Internet: G.Joly@cs.ucl.ac.uk          UUCP: ...!{uunet,ukc}!ucl-cs!G.Joly
Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, LONDON WC1E 6BT

                      No more pork sausages!