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From: colonel@gloria.UUCP (George Sicherman)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: The Turing Test - machines vs people
Message-ID: <255@gloria.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 23-Jun-84 11:49:24 EDT
Article-I.D.: gloria.255
Posted: Sat Jun 23 11:49:24 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Jun-84 03:00:42 EDT
References: <1058@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Computer Science
Lines: 26

[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.  Nothing would
be easier, for that matter, than to program a computer to take part in
what Berne calls "8-stroke rituals":

	Hi.
	Hi.
	How are you?
	Fine.  How are you?
	Fine.  Nice day, isn't it?
	Yes.
	Well, goodbye.
	Goodbye.

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.

-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
...seismo!rochester!rocksanne!rocksvax!sunybcs!gloria!colonel