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From: grady@apple.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: The CyberTest
Message-ID: <6441@apple.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-Oct-87 17:14:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: apple.6441
Posted: Thu Oct  8 17:14:09 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 11-Oct-87 08:29:48 EDT
References: <6413@apple.UUCP> <1639@ukecc.engr.uky.edu>
Reply-To: grady@apple.UUCP (Grady Ward)
Distribution: world
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA
Lines: 17
Keywords: AI CyberTest Turing ScientificMode proof Kuhn Popper fear
Summary: Proof a subset of persuasion


You object to the CyberTest on the basis that persuasion and proof are
distinct processes.  Presumably, you believe that persuasion and
eloquence are simple sophistry, both easily detected and dismissed,
while "proof" is a much stronger test against error.  May I ask how
*you* were persuaded that "proof" is convincing?  By an eloquent
geometry teacher perhaps?  Be warned that that teacher may have
been one of my CyberTest agents practicing its ScientificMode
persuasion heuristic.  Successfully, apparently.

I suspect that the superior AI reads both Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper
and knows how to recast argument to suit both the longshoreman as
well as the intellectual skeptic, and that if it were still unable to
convince you, given *whatever* reasonable or unreasonable canon of
proof you employ, then it would not yet be worthy.  On the other hand,
you may be the last holdout, in which case. . .
:-) Grady Ward