Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!cornell!vax5!b27y
From: b27y@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Turing Test and Subject Bias
Message-ID: <18719@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU>
Date: 1 Jun 89 17:00:11 GMT
References: <3018@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Sender: news@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU
Reply-To: b27y@vax5.cit.cornell.edu (MICHAEL GRAY)
Organization: Cornell Information Technologies, Ithaca NY
Lines: 44

In article <3018@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
>Then how valid is the Turing Test?
>
>Just what sort of Science did young Mr. Turing have in mind when he
>decided that subjective opinion could ever be a measure of system
>performance?
>
>How do AI types *REALLY* test their systems?

The Turing Test is not really used to test AI systems at all.

If The AI Guys today could get 55% of any (sober) group of people that
thought the computer was intellegent, they would be dancing around
the room. We are looking at a at least another few decades of research
before we have anything "smart" enough to trick anyone.

The Turing Test should be thought of as a Thought experiment:
	If you have some system that in every way seems and behaves 
	in an intellegent manner, is it intellegent, or is it
	just some very complex series of brainless conditional
	responses?

It brings up some fascinating philosophical questions.  My favorate
twist on the question:  "How do you know if the person you are 
talking to is really intellegent?"  The writer of this letter on
the Usenet may SEEM like he/she/it has reasonable mental capabilities,
(except for maybe spelling) but what if it is (I am) just some complex 
fancy generator.

If your interested in a better discussion of the Turing Test, along with
a very good counterexample (The Chinese Room example) I would read
Robert Searle's paper called something like "Minds, Brains, and Program". 
( I'm pretty sure that title is wrong).  I think I saw some discusion on 
Searle lately on the net about him either in comp.ai or somewhere else.


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