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From: cam@edai.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.edai   031 667 1011 x2550)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Turing Test and Subject Bias
Message-ID: <408@edai.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 7 Jun 89 12:25:06 GMT
References: <3018@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <1108@hydra.cs.Helsinki.FI> <3039@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Reply-To: cam@edai (Chris Malcolm)
Organization: University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh
Lines: 20

In article <3039@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> gilbert@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Gilbert Cockton) writes:
>The quality of a Turing test depends on the quality of the observing
>subjects.  This is not true in the same way, or to the same extent,
>for proper experimental investigations. 

This is an excellent point. Why, only last week, when one of my research
assistants came up to me saying "I've been playing with the latest
version of the program for a week now, and I still can't tell the
difference between it and Harry!" I had to explain to her - yet again! -
the proper design of psychological experiments.

Come on! What are we talking about? Turing suggested a gedanken
experiment he doesn't think would in practice be possible for 50 years,
there's no good reason to contract that estimate, and Gilbert is
criticising the design of the experiment as though it were commonplace
practice??
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.edai   031 667 1011 x2550
Department of Artificial Intelligence, Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK