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From: me@utai.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.ai,net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Searle, Turing, Symbols, Categories
Message-ID: <2635@utai.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Oct-86 19:11:29 EST
Article-I.D.: utai.2635
Posted: Wed Oct 29 19:11:29 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 30-Oct-86 01:24:59 EST
References: <158@mind.UUCP> <150@cwrudg.UUCP> <160@mind.UUCP> <2495@utai.UUCP> <2552@utai.UUCP> <1@mind.UUCP>
Reply-To: me@utai.UUCP (Daniel Simon)
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto
Lines: 107
Summary: 

In article <1@mind.UUCP> harnad@mind.UUCP (Stevan Harnad) writes:
>In reply to a prior iteration D. Simon writes:
>
>>	I fail to see what [your "Total Turing Test"] has to do with
>>	the Turing test as originally conceived, which involved measuring
>>	up AI systems against observers' impressions, rather than against
>>	objective standards... Moreover, you haven't said anything concrete
>>	about what this test might look like.
>
>How about this for a first approximation: We already know, roughly
>speaking, what human beings are able to "do" -- their total cognitive
>performance capacity: They can recognize, manipulate, sort, identify and
>describe the objects in their environment and they can respond and reply
>appropriately to descriptions. Get a robot to do that. When you think
>he can do everything you know people can do formally, see whether
>people can tell him apart from people informally.
>
"respond and reply appropriately to descriptions".  Very nice.  Should be a
piece of cake to formalize--especially once you've formalized recognition,
manipulation, identification, and description (and, let's face it, any dumb
old computer can sort).  This is precisely what I was wondering when I asked
you what this total Turing test looks like.  Apparently, you haven't the
foggiest idea, except that it would test roughly the same things that the
old-fashioned, informal, does-it-look-smart-or-doesn't-it Turing test checks.

In fact, none of the criteria you have described above seems defineable in any
sense other than by reference to standard Turing test results ("gee, it sure 
classified THAT element the way I would've!").  And if you WERE to define the
entire spectrum of human behaviour in an objective fashion ("rule 1:  
answering, 'splunge!' to any question is hereby defined as an 'appropriate 
reply'"), how would you determine whether the objective definition is useful?  
Why, build a robot embodying it, and see if people consider it intelligent, of
course!  The illusion of a "total" Turing test, distinct from the 
old-fashioned, subjective variety, thus vanishes in a puff of empiricism.

And forget the well-that's-the-way-Science-does-it argument.  It won't wash
--see below.

>>	I believe that people in general dodge the "other minds" problem
>>	simply by accepting as a convention that human beings are by 
>>	definition intelligent.
>
>That's an artful dodge indeed. And do you think animals also accept such
>conventions about one another? Philosophers, at least, seem to
>have noticed that there's a bit of a problem there. Looking human
>certainly gives us the prima facie benefit of the doubt in many cases,
>but so far nature has spared us having to contend with any really
>artful imposters. Wait till the robots begin giving our lax informal
>turing-testing a run for its money.
>
I haven't a clue whether animals think, or whether you think, for that matter.  
This is precisely my point.  I don't believe we humans have EVER solved the 
"other minds" problem, or have EVER used the Turing test, even to try to 
resolve the question of whether there exist "other minds".  The fact that you 
would like us to have done so, thus giving you a justification for the use of 
the (informal part of) the Turing test (and the subsequent implicit basing of 
the formal part on the informal part--see above), doesn't make it so.

This is where your scientific-empirical model for developing the "total"
Turing test out of the original falls down.  Let's examine the development of
a typical scientific concept:  You have some rough, intuitive observations of
phenomena (gravity, stars, skin).  You take some objects whose properties
you believe you understand (rocks, telescopes, microscopes), let them interact
with your vaguely observed phenomenon, and draw more rigorous conclusions based 
on the recorded results of these experimental interactions.

Now, let's examine the Turing test in that light:  we take possibly-intelligent 
robot R, whose properties are fairly well understood, and sit it in front of 
person P, whose properties are something of a cipher to us.  We then have them 
interact, and get a reading off person P (such as, "yup, shore is smart", or, 
"nope, dumb as a tree").  Now, what properties are being scientifically 
investigated here?  They can't have anything to do with robot R--we assume that
R's designer, Dr. Rstein, already has a fairly good idea what R is about.  
Rather, it appears as though you are discerning those attributes of people 
which relate to their judgment of intelligence in other objects.  Of course, it 
might well turn out that something productive comes out of this, but it's also 
quite possible (and I conjecture that it's actually quite likely) that what you 
get out of this is some scientific law such as, "anything which is physically 
indistinguishable from a human being and can mutter something that sounds like 
person P's language is intelligent; anything else is generally dumb, but 
possibly intelligent, depending on the decoration of the room and the drug 
content of P's bloodstream at the time of the test".  In short, my worries 
about the context-dependence and subjective quality of the results have not 
disappeared in a puff of empiricism; they loom as large as ever.

>
>>	WHAT DOES THE "TOTAL TURING TEST" LOOK LIKE?...  Please
>>	forgive my impertinent questions, but I haven't read your
>>	articles, and I'm not exactly clear about what this "total"
>>	Turing test entails.
>
>Try reading the articles.
>
Well, not only did I consider this pretty snide, but when I sent you mail 
privately, asking politely where I can find the articles in question, I didn't 
even get an answer, snide or otherwise.  So starting with this posting, I 
refuse to apologize for being impertinent.  Nyah, nyah, nyah.

>
>
>Stevan Harnad
>princeton!mind!harnad

						Daniel R. Simon

"sorry, no more quotations"
		-D. Simon