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Article 6136 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: gomez@barros.cs.ucf.edu (Fernando Gomez)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Transducers
Message-ID: <1992Jun7.034525.16059@cs.ucf.edu>
Date: 7 Jun 92 03:45:25 GMT
References: <1992Jun6.153132.25456@Princeton.EDU> <1992Jun6.163918.24479@news.media.mit.edu> <BILL.92Jun6194350@ca3.nsma.arizona.edu>
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Bill Skaggs writes:

"... If the machine is designed to be a conversation partner, then TT
capability is sufficient; if it is designed as, say, a gymnastics
instructor, some degree of TTT capablility is necessary ..." (End of Quote)


It may not be sufficient. It depends on the subject matter of the
conversation. Suppose that one builds a robot that eats just like we
do. Will not be that robot in better position to conduct a conversation
with us about eating than a program/robot that everything
it knows about eating is by being told? Suppose that we start asking
questions like: "Does food get between the teeth when we eat,
under the tongue? Does the teeth get busier in eating an apple
than in eating a jello? This line of questioning may become very nasty,
indeed, for artificial intelligencers.
Now, suppose that none of the robots knows what a jello is. The eating-robot
can reply to the question about the jello by saying:
"I don't know, but if you give me a jello to eat I can tell you."
What about the other robot? Would it know what to ask? Would you know
what to tell it?


P.S. I was out of this exchange. But, Harnad's note rescuing cognitive
science from QM got me back into the game.


Fernando Gomez


