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From: ciancarini-paolo@cs.yale.edu (paolo ciancarini)
Subject: Re: Turing Test, what's the point?
Message-ID: <1991Jun25.180330.3645@cs.yale.edu>
Originator: cianca@poe.CS.Yale.Edu
Keywords: AI, computers
Sender: Paolo Ciancarini
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Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2158
References: <612@ckgp.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1991 18:03:30 GMT
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In article <612@ckgp.UUCP> thomas@ckgp.UUCP (Michael Thomas) writes:
>Hi everyone,
>
>	Now it was my understanding that Turing felt that a computer
> would never be able to "Think" or actually be "Intelligent", and
> dispite the definitions of these terms, we all understand what is
> meant. (I hope) So it was also my understanding that Turing felt
> that the best a computer might be able to do someday is imitate
> a person. So he devised a test to deturmine if a computer at some
> point could accomplish this task....
>
> So, is this correct so far??? (I believe it is...)
>
> 	So, does anyone else feel that prehaps Turing was incorrect in 
> his analysis of future computer technology (current computer technology)?
>        Does anyone feel that this is still a valid test, which should be
> used in every case to deturmine if a system is intelligent, as compared
> to humans? 
>        Does anyone believe that this test is in anyway valid in
> deturmining if a system is intelligent? 
>        
> Has anyone established a test or heard of one that would be better suited
> for deturmining if a system is intelligent?
>
>-- 
>Thank you,
>Michael Thomas
>(..uunet!ckgp!thomas)

Recently I saw on some TV channel a documentary about sen. McCarthy
and his times (the late forties and early fifties). 
I was struck by a question made by a journalist to the senator: 
McCarthy was asked how he could recognize a communist.
He answered something like this: 
"if he speaks like a communist, if he writes like a communist,
if he has communists friends, if he looks like a communist, he IS a communist".
Unfortunately, the Senator could convince a lot of people
that such a criterion was good.

I do not know why, but I immediately associated such a definition
to the Turing paper (1950) in which he introduced his Test concerning thinking machines.
Is it possible that Turing was not "analyzing future computer technology"
but simply using some cultural paradigms of his time?
May I suggest that the Turing test was a sort of cryptic joke about McCarthism?

Paolo Ciancarini