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From: ziane@nuri.inria.fr (ziane mikal @)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Test: opinions on an idea
Message-ID: <2226@seti.inria.fr>
Date: 28 May 91 16:22:03 GMT
References: <1991May13.133711.102@athena.mit.edu> <1991May14.031103.2624@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1991May14.140005.14956@athena.mit.edu>
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In article <1991May14.140005.14956@athena.mit.edu> mlevin@athena.mit.edu (Mike Levin) writes:
>In article <1991May14.031103.2624@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> chalmers@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>>
>>N. Block, "Psychologism and Behaviorism", Philosophical Review 90:5-43, 1981.
>>
>>This is about precisely the scenario that you imagine.  A long, thorough,
>>and interesting article -- definitely good value.  Block draws the conclusion
>>that the TT is too behaviourist to serve as a sufficient criterion for
>>intelligence.

(sorry to cross reference)
In any case it cannot be a criterion for intelligence. It's only a nice
test for a given individual to be convinced that the machine is somehow
intelligent. I would certainly not accept anybody to talk with the
machine and then decide himself that the machine is "objectively"
intelligent. I would like to do it myself ! Also I would demand excellent
proofs that the the conditions of the test are respected (like there is
no radio, as mentionned in another article).

I think that the behaviourist aspect of TT is more a problem related to
convincing people rather than a problem related to a definition of
intelligence. In order to convince someone of something extraordinary
you need extraordinary arguments (e.g. excellent proofs that the conditions of
the test are respected). Also it is very useful to show people why they were
wrong to a priori think that the result is impossible. One way to do this
is to "open the box" and explain how the machine think.

I don't see, except for this practical problem of convincing people, why a
definition of intelligence could not be behaviorist. I can only see that
such a definition would be much more precise than a definition taking into
account the process used. The reason is that when a behaviorist experiment
has succeeded you have little ground for generalizing the results if you
do not make assumptions on the way those results are produced.
In other terms, a behaviorist experiment can only be a direct proof, which
can be problematic for a complex phenomenon, but I don't see why it
cannot be a proof.

> While I agree, this example is obviously ridiculously 
>implausible, I think that it really doesn't matter.  The mere
>possibility of *some* techinical advance providing a way to fake true
>intelligence throws the door open to the same criticism being applied
>to successful future AI projects.
>
>Mike Levin

(switch to Mike)
By successful I guess that you mean "that have only proved their success
by passing TT". I guess no real AI project will only be judged on such
a ground.

Mikal.