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From: jan@cs.umu.se (Jan T}ngring)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Test: opinions on an idea
Message-ID: <1991Jun7.163915.6684@cs.umu.se>
Date: 7 Jun 91 16:39:15 GMT
References: <1991May13.133711.102@athena.mit.edu> <1991May14.031103.2624@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1991May16.005158.1822@athena.mit.edu>
Sender: jan@cs.umu.se
Organization: Dep. of Info.Proc, Umea Univ., Sweden
Lines: 33

In article <1991May16.005158.1822@athena.mit.edu> patl@athena.mit.edu (Patrick J. LoPresti) writes:
>Suppose I construct a list of all
>conversations that I feel you and I might have for the next few minutes.
>(Let's see. You say, "hello", then I say, "hi," then you say...)  I then
>compile this into a large search tree, then allow you to communicate
>with it by tty.  With whom are you conversing?
>
>With me, obviously.  All I have done is pre-record my responses.  It is
>just a rather strange communication medium.
>
>The Turing Test serves to detect intelligence; it gives no guarantee as
>to where that intelligence lies.  Consider the fact that a two-way radio
>passes the TT.  The TT correctly detects the presence of an
>intelligence; it is your own error if you attribute that intelligence to
>the radio.  For the case of Block's device, the intelligence which the
>TT detects is that of the creators of the list.

I think that Block tries to guard himself from this counter-argument 
by arguing that the program might suddenly come to existence by pure 
chance.  In other words no intelligence involved. In the two-way 
radio example you might just be talking to random noise on the same 
channel that happens to sound like a voice responding sensibly.

Does anyone have a comment to this?

>-Pat LoPresti  (patl@athena.mit.edu)
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