Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!amdahl!kp From: kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Eliminating Species Bias from the Turing Test Summary: How's the Weather? Keywords: Turing Test, non-human Message-ID: Date: 5 Feb 90 20:13:50 GMT References: <15439@well.UUCP> <11673@csli.Stanford.EDU> <11324@venera.isi.edu> <1700@castle.ed.ac.uk> <11489@venera.UUCP> <6340@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> <7cHZ028I81fo01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <4819@convex.convex.com> <376@radzy.UUCP> Reply-To: kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting) Distribution: comp Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA Lines: 55 In article <376@radzy.UUCP> radzy@radzy.PacBell.COM (Tim Radzykewycz) writes: >In all the discussion I've seen about the Turing test, people >have often brought up the possibility of asking the question >"Are you human?" In all the other discussions (e.g. other than >this one on the net) SOMEBODY has always brought up the point >that the HUMAN in the test might also lie. I guess I have to >be the one this time. > >How can the person asking the question know for certain that >the answers of either subject (e.g. human or computer program) >are true? What are the criteria which s/he can use to determine >this? This particular problem is easy. If you ask a few questions like "What city are you in?" and "What's the weather like?" you can use a newspaper to tell whether the answers are consistent. The idea is to use yet another instance of a task which is trivial for people but tedious for computers. Almost every discussion of the Turing Test I've read focuses on the subjective experience of humans, and whether a computer can give a convincing impression of having the same experiences - hopes, fears, etc. This is perhaps a natural place to focus, if we suppose that the computer will have only a teletype with which to interact with the outside world. It might seem excessively "unfair to the machine" to expect it to be prepared with up-to-the-minute data on weather or current events. Look at how easy it would be to trip up a computer in a discussion about daily life. People ate dinner last night, went out, or watched TV, or read a newspaper, and in the process acquired some topical information. For a computer to convince us that it occupies its evenings similarly, a data entry operation of massive proportion would be required. This is my favorite reason for supposing that the Turing Test will NEVER be passed. No funding agency in its right mind would underwrite the project. Of course, it's no slur on an AI that it doesn't watch Johnny Carson, or talk about the weather. Ian Sutherland comments: > . . . Let's try and come a little >closer to passing the Turing test before we start worrying about >whether passing the Turing test is adequate or not. We might be able to specify an objective criterion which is easier to implement, yet more convincing than the TT. One aspect of the TT that reduces its significance is that a machine can pass it without knowing it's a machine. Let me emphasize this: LYING IS NOT A PROBLEM. NOT KNOWING THE TRUTH IS. An elementary ability to make descriptive statements about one's own body and its current condition is present in children soon after they learn to speak. Animals can't talk, but they clearly adapt their behavior to their various states of hunger, temperature, etc. Absence of this ability completely precludes any claim that the system in question is conscious.