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From: harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: Re: Turing test - the robot version
Message-ID: <164@mind.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Oct-86 01:04:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: mind.164
Posted: Thu Oct  9 01:04:59 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Oct-86 01:22:43 EDT
References: <158@mind.UUCP> <150@cwrudg.UUCP> <1099@sunybcs.UUCP>
Organization: Cognitive Science, Princeton University
Lines: 24
Summary: Reply to comment on Searle, Turing, Symbols Categories (2 papers)

>>>	instead of a computer trying to fool you in ASCII,
>>>	it's a robot trying to fool you in the flesh...
>>>	Remember, scientists aren't just trying to make things better for you.
>>>	They're also trying to fool you!

The purpose of scientific inquiry is not just to better the human
condition. It is also to understand nature, including human nature.
Nothing can do this more directly than trying to model the mind. But
how can you tell whether your model is veridical? One way is to test
whether its performance is identical with human performance. That's no
guarantee that it's veridical, but there's no guarantee with our
models of physical nature either. These too are underdetermined by
data, as I argue in the papers in question. And besides, the robot
version of the turing test is already the one we use every day, in our
informal solutions to the other-minds problem.

Finally, there's a world of difference, as likewise argued in the
papers, between being able to "fool" someone in symbols and being able
to do it in the flesh-and-blood world of objects and causality. And
before we wax too sceptical about such successes, let's first try to
achieve them.

Stevan Harnad
princeton!mind!harnad