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From: colonel@gloria.UUCP (George Sicherman)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: The Turing Test - machines vs. people
Message-ID: <290@gloria.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Jul-84 23:26:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: gloria.290
Posted: Sun Jul  1 23:26:59 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 3-Jul-84 03:41:42 EDT
References: <1058@sri-arpa.UUCP> <255@gloria.UUCP> <331@pucc-i>
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Lines: 49

[Regale si tu peux et mange si tu l'oses.]

For those of you who missed the start of this colloquy, here's the text
of Turing's original hypothetical conversation:

	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.

This strains my credulity.  Is it coincidence that the computer declines
to write a sonnet and accepts the other challenges?  A real human, trying
to prove that he is not a computer program, would probably welcome the
opportunity to offer a poem.

And did Turing believe that one can be an "expert" poet in the same way
that one can be an expert arithmetician or chess-player?  I hope not!

>>	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...]

This is unworthy of its author.  Of course I read the article.  My attack
was not against the details of the conversation (for that matter, the
third problem is ambiguous), but the premise of the Test.  You may
remember that Turing called it a "Game" rather than a "Test."  This
sort of situation arises _only_ as a game; if you really want to know
whether somebody is a person or a computer, you just look at him/it.

I should think that ELIZA has laid to rest the myth that a program's
"humanity" has anything to do with its intelligence.  ELIZA's intel-
ligence was low, but she was a very human source of comfort to many
people who talked with her.
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
...seismo!rochester!rocksanne!rocksvax!sunybcs!gloria!colonel