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Article 6232 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Turing Test is not a Trick
Message-ID: <1992Jun12.190924.36762@spss.com>
Date: 12 Jun 92 19:09:24 GMT
References: <1992Jun11.154029.29686@Princeton.EDU> <60807@aurs01.UUCP>
Organization: SPSS Inc.
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In article <60807@aurs01.UUCP> throop@aurs01.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:
>The point is, "everything a car can do", or "everything a human can do"
>are both hopelessly vague.  It is absolutely clear to me that certain
>features of what current cars can do are irrelevant to their car-ness.
>Similarly, it is clear to me that certain features of what humans
>can do are irrelevant to their intelligence.  Unless one makes at least
>some attempt to say what is relevant and irrelevant about car-ness,
>"everything a car can do" is meaningless.  Similarly, unless one makes
>at least some attempt to say what is relevant and irrelevant about
>intelligence, "everything a human can do" is likewise meaningless.

I agree with you here.  Some things are pretty clearly not relevant to
intelligence.  To require the robot (android?) to duplicate a human in
*every respect* seems to go too far.  But surely it's possible to go too
far in the other direction, too.  For instance, you say

>Similarly, if what's important about a human is their communicative
>ability, it doesn't matter if they are speaking english or signing
>ASL.  

To me, that's far too narrow.  If we're trying to define or detect
intelligence, I am not willing to restrict it to the ability to communicate
by teletype; I also want to look at complex sensory processing, intonation,
nonverbal behavior, social interaction, creativity, and more.  


