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From: kp@uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Can Machines Think?
Summary: Incorrect answers will eventually be unconvincing
Keywords: Chinese Room, Searle,
Message-ID: <2dSM02LL88qx01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 13 Feb 90 19:46:02 GMT
References: <898D02hl87rd01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <6573@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> <e58H02l087KM01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> <1336@oravax.UUCP>
Reply-To: kp@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Ken Presting)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 52

In article <1336@oravax.UUCP> daryl@oravax.UUCP (Steven Daryl McCullough) writes:
>In the original Turing Test, it was required that the interrogator
>only be able to question the "contestant" via a teletype system, not
>in "person". The reason for this stipulation is that the goal of
>artificial intelligence is to reproduce a human mind, *not* a human
>body. . . .
> . . . Answering *correctly* is not required for the Turing Test,
>only answering convincingly.

I agree completely that convincing answers are all that is required.  My
point is that it is trivially simple to get a "pure symbol system" to
generate unconvincing answers.  This is great for Strong AI, because it
shows that computers are anything but pure symbol systems.

Suppose the interrogator asks, in Chinese, "What day is it?" or "What
month is it?"  It is common to become confused occaisionally about the
date, or day of the week.  But a rulebook like Searle's, or a computer
which was so lazily programmed that it did not examine the system clock,
would *never* get it straight.  So an interrogator would start to get
suspicious.

Now consider a teletype-oriented question.  Suppose the interrogator types
as fast as he can the question "How long did this question take to type?"
Then suppose he types the same question again, very slowly.  A human on
the other teletype could tell the difference immediately.  SO COULD A REAL
COMPUTER.  But Searle, manipulating symbols, wouldn't have a chance.

What this shows is that Searle's Axiom 1 is false.  Programs *do* have
semantics.  It does *not* show that the program understands what it is
saying or doing, but that is something I will get to later.


>Someone in this newsgroup (I don't remember who) brought up the issue
>that if computer program succeeded in passing the Turing Test, it
>would have to do so through lying; it would have to claim to be a
>human being, to have headaches occasionally, to wear green ties, etc.

That was me!

>I don't think the fact that these claims are false should in any way
>be held against the computer program; it could very well have the
>*mind* of a human being with stomach aches, etc., and so could be
>answering truthfully as far as it knows. A human being can be
>similarly mistaken about the state of his or her own body; for
>example, the "phantom limb" experience of amputees, or the "phantom
>odors" experienced when one's brain is stimulated by an electrode.

The problem is not that the computer lies.  There is only a problem if
the computer does not know the truth.  To put it better, there is a big
problem if the program does not know *any* of the truth.

Ken Presting