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From: jbaxter@physics.adelaide.edu.au (Jon Baxter)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: If it does not pass TT it is not intelligent????
Keywords: TT, intelligence
Message-ID: <3737@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au>
Date: 20 Jun 91 01:07:17 GMT
References: <8569@awdprime.UUCP> <1991Jun18.220932.22904@news.media.mit.edu> <3727@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au> <1991Jun19.050512.27413@news.media.mit.edu>
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Reply-To: jbaxter@adelphi.physics.adelaide.edu.au.oz.au (Jon Baxter)
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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:
>>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.

So you are claiming that Turing, in devising his test, was defending the
view that the only reasonable definition of intelligence is a behavioural
one.

>
> So, yes, he meant for the people to be uncritical.  Do you think Eliza
> is more or less intellgient than an ant?  Do you think something is
> either intelligent or not?  Shame on you for wasting your intelligence
> on such silly matters.  My point is that the "critical" people seem
> just as foolish because, in my view, there isn't any such thing as
> "intelligence" or "intentionality" of any of those things.  They're
> all relative...

A behavioural definition of intelligence is fine for most practical purposes.
In the same way, data sheets for transistors are all that's needed when
building circuits. But we don't stop trying to understand how transistors work
just because we know how they behave, and in the same way I don't see why
we should stop trying to understand the nature of intelligence even if we
know how to use it. "Understanding the nature of intelligence" may have less
credibility than "Understanding the nature of transistors"; philosophy being
less credible than physics, but that is only my opinion. Besides, claiming
"there isn't any such thing as `intelligence' or `intentionality'..." is a
philosophical standpoint in itself, which you have to justify. And once you
start arguing for your position, you'll find yourself embroiled in the kind
of philosophical questions you deride above.

Jon Baxter.