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From: ISSSSM@NUSVM.BITNET (Stephen Smoliar)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: RE: IF IT DOES NOT PASS TT IT IS NOT INTELLIGENT????
Message-ID: <9106200231.AA06339@lilac.berkeley.edu>
Date: 20 Jun 91 02:31:46 GMT
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X-Unparsable-Date: Thu, 20 Jun 91 10:30:40 SST

In article <1991Jun19.050512.27413@news.media.mit.edu>
minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>In article <3727@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au>
>jbaxter@adelphi.physics.adelaide.edu.au.oz.au (Jon Baxter) writes:
>>In article <1991Jun18.220932.22904@news.media.mit.edu>
>>minsky@media-lab.media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>>
>>> Please, Turing never meant the TT to be Necessary for people to
>>> recognize something as intelligent.  It was only intended to be a
>>> Sufficient condition.  And it was not to define intelligence, but only
>>> to propose a situation in which non-critical people would usually agree.
>>
>>Then what use is the Turing test? Sufficiently non-critical people think
>>that Eliza is intelligent, but anyone with computing knowledge would
>>disagree.
>>Did Turing really mean for the people in his test to be non-critical?
>
>It isn't any use at all, so far as I know.  Turing was addressing the
>problem that people, because they have the word "intelligent", think
>there must be a thing that corresponds to it, and they want a
>definition that will help them recognize that thing.  So Turing,
>observing that they couldn't agree, suggested his "test" as a
>sufficent condition: if people couldn't distinguish, over the phone,
>between a person and computer X, then they could probably agree that
>the computer must be intelligent.
>
Since I do not have the paper in front of me, I shall have to rely on my
memory.  However, the reading of the paper that I recall does not quite
align with Minsky's (although it is very close).  Unless I am mistaken,
Turing uses his opening paragraphs to argue that it is a waste of time
to consider a question as naive as "Can a machine think?"  Therefore,
in the interest of being more productive, he introduces his "Imitation
Game" as a more realistic arena for investigation.  In other words he
replaces the intelligence question with that of whether or not a machine
could play the Imitation Game well enough that the other player would not
recognize it as a machine.  He then devotes the rest of the paper to arguing
why it is feasible that this would eventually be the case.

The paper, itself, by the way, is a model of simplicity and elegance, laced
with just the right amount of imagination and humor.  If the paper had been
written poorly or in obscure language, I would understand why so many people
would be more inclined to accept second-hand accounts of what Turing said.
The truth, however, is that very few of those second-hand accounts tell the
story as well as Turing did;  and, as we keep being reminded by articles on
this bulletin board, those second-hand accounts seem to beget some utterly
silly ideas as to what Turing was all about.

===============================================================================

Stephen W. Smoliar
Institute of Systems Science
National University of Singapore
Heng Mui Keng Terrace, Kent Ridge
SINGAPORE 0511

BITNET:  ISSSSM@NUSVM

"He was of Lord Essex's opinion, 'rather to go an hundred miles to speak with
one wise man, than five miles to see a fair town.'"--Boswell on Johnson