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From: ags@pucc-i (Seaman)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: The Turing Test - machines vs people
Message-ID: <331@pucc-i>
Date: Wed, 27-Jun-84 20:36:05 EDT
Article-I.D.: pucc-i.331
Posted: Wed Jun 27 20:36:05 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 30-Jun-84 02:36:49 EDT
References: <1058@sri-arpa.UUCP> <255@gloria.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 43

>  [This followup was actually written by a very clever computer program.]
>  
>  As you say, the Turing test is a _conversational_ test.  Do you remember
>  Turing's original "conversation"?  "...Count me out on this.  I never
>  could write poetry."
	.
	.
	.
>  The whole conversation is fatuous!  But then, it has no bonafide purpose.
>  It was merely set up by a scientist to prove something.  
>  
>  But would you want to carry on such a conversation with a computer?
>  One converses socially only with conversers that one knows to be people.

Your bug-killer line turns out to have more apparent truth in it than the
rest of the article.  It's too bad you didn't read the original conversation
which you quoted from.  I am giving you the benefit of the doubt here by
assuming that you did not deliberately misrepresent the conversation (and that
you were not unable to understand it):

	Q: Please write me a sonnet on the subject of the Forth Bridge.
	A: Count me out on this one.  I never could write poetry.
	Q: Add 34957 to 70764.
	A: (Pause about 30 seconds and then give as answer) 105621.
	Q: Do you play chess?
	A: Yes.
	Q: I have K at my K1, and no other pieces.  You have only K at K6
	   and R at R1.  It is your move.  What do you play?
	A: (After a pause of 15 seconds) R-R8 mate.

The point of the first answer is that no human is an expert on everything,
and that a program which hopes to pass the Turing test had best not give
itself away by being overly knowledgeable.

Did you notice that the answer to the second question is incorrect?  It
should be 105721.  [Aha! a sexist machine!  It assumes that women are no
good with figures.  Oops--I forgot.  Since you haven't read Turing's
"Can a Machine Think?" you won't understand what women have to do with
this discussion.  Oh, well...]
-- 

Dave Seaman			"My hovercraft is full of eels."
..!pur-ee!pucc-i:ags