Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnewsh!mbb
From: mbb@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (martin.b.brilliant)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Turing Test and Subject Bias
Message-ID: <1174@cbnewsh.ATT.COM>
Date: 5 Jun 89 21:28:14 GMT
References: <3039@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 25

From article <3039@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>, by gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton):
> .....
> In Turing's day, it was not as unreasonable to think of 'intelligence'
> as an out-there in-agents property.
> 
> The term has no role today apart from common sense approbation.

I don't want to sound stupid, but it seems to me that a statement like
that takes all the meaning out of the term "artificial intelligence."
What is artifical intelligence if intelligence is meaningless?

If I take the statement literally, it means that if I like a machine, I
can say it embodies artificial intelligence, and nobody (or anybody)
can contradict me, because my statement is totally subjective.

I really have trouble absorbing that.  I sometimes find value in
Gilbert Cockton's unconventional views, but at other times I find his
excesses excessive.

M. B. Brilliant					Marty
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520	(201) 949-1858
Holmdel, NJ 07733	att!hounx!marty1 or marty1@hounx.ATT.COM

Disclaimer: Opinions stated herein are mine unless and until my employer
	    explicitly claims them; then I lose all rights to them.