Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!ruth
From: ruth@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Ruth Aylett)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Eliminating Species Bias from the Turing Test
Keywords: Turing Test, non-human
Message-ID: <1673@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 5 Feb 90 14:37:15 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> <1877@aipna.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: ruth@aiai.UUCP (Ruth Aylett)
Distribution: comp
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 17

As I recall, deception was an essential element of the original Turing
Test - the one that involved a man and a woman. The task was to
distinguish which was the real woman, given that the man was doing his
best to appear as a woman too. 

To stand a chance of succeeding, the man has to possess the human
capacities of imagination, empathy, and understanding of tests and
games, that is social ritual. Would any intelligent entity (assuming we
can imagine what a non-human intelligence might be like) be wedded to
the literal truth? Or, in the original case, why would the man want to
do something as ridiculous as pretend to be a woman over a teletype?

As a matter of interest, has anyone anywhere ever tried this original
turing test? If so, with what result?
                                                  Ruth Aylett
                                                  ruth@aiai.uucp
                                                  R.Aylett@uk.ac.ed