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From: steve@nuchat.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: The CyberTest
Message-ID: <407@nuchat.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 17-Oct-87 14:06:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: nuchat.407
Posted: Sat Oct 17 14:06:53 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 19-Oct-87 04:39:52 EDT
References: <6413@apple.UUCP> <3099@uwmcsd1.UUCP>
Organization: Public Access - Houston, Tx
Lines: 37
Keywords: AI Turing
Summary: about the Turing test

In article <3099@uwmcsd1.UUCP>, cmaag@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Christopher N Maag):
> In article <6413@apple.UUCP> grady@apple.UUCP (Grady Ward) writes:
> >	O.K.  So the Turing test can tell you when AI's are
> >indistinguishable from humans.  

> Being fairly new to the genre (I've only read Gibson up to this point), 
> could someone expand a little on the "Turing Test"?  Was it actually 
> devised by Turing?  Please e-mail if you don't feel it is of general
> interest.

Alan Turing proposed the test which is now named for him in the context
of a debate in the mathematics community over just what artificial
intelligence _meant_.  He did not intend it as a test for AI but
more as a definition of it.  I don't have that lecture with me,
so I paraphrase:

	The sceptic sits before a teleprinter.  The testor is free
	to attach the printer to a similar device with a human operator
	or to the mechanism under test.  If the sceptic cannot determine
	which is the machine and which is the human, the machine can
	be said to be intelligent.

It was at one time said that intelligence was the ability to make
choices.  As soon as digital systems started makeing choices, the
definition was narrowed.  Each time the definition is met by
a computer intelligence is redifined.  I wish I could remember
some of the other difinitions, but we've been through 3 or 4 
widely accepted definitions.  Turing's test will probably
not be redefined when it is successfully met, but unlike Alan
noone today expects that to happen any time soon.

_The_Enigma_, a biography of Alan Turing by (first name?) Hodges
is recommended.
-- 
Steve Nuchia	    | [...] but the machine would probably be allowed no mercy.
uunet!nuchat!steve  | In other words then, if a machine is expected to be
(713) 334 6720	    | infallible, it cannot be intelligent.  - Alan Turing, 1947