From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!torn!utcsri!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdat!swf Tue Jun 23 13:21:04 EDT 1992
Article 6296 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!torn!utcsri!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!tdat!swf
>From: swf@teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Turing Test is not a Trick
Message-ID: <489@tdat.teradata.COM>
Date: 17 Jun 92 21:52:42 GMT
References: <1992Jun11.154029.29686@Princeton.EDU> <60807@aurs01.UUCP>
Sender: news@tdat.teradata.COM
Reply-To: swf@tdat.teradata.com (Stanley Friesen)
Organization: NCR Teradata Database Business Unit
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In article <60807@aurs01.UUCP> throop@aurs01.UUCP (Wayne Throop) writes:
|
|Thus, in prefering the TTT over the TT, it seems to me that one
|is arguing that the extra things directly checkable are relevant.
|The only relevance I have seen advanced for them, however, is that
|they make the test harder to pass.  But this seems very strange.
|Making the test harder to pass is no particularly worthwhile goal
|in and of itself.

Quite.  In fact the TTT makes it almost impossible for anything *except*
a human being to pass.  This is *far* too stringent.

Why should we require that a conscious mind be particularly *human*?

Do we really want to rule out a conscious octopus? Or a conscious ant
colony?  Either of these would 'fail' in exactly the same ways as a
computer for some of the 'trick' questions suggested in other posts.
(Jello? underwater?!?, Teeth? what are those?)

[And a conscious octopus is not really that unreasonable biologically
speaking, they already have a remarkable ability to learn].

|Similarly, if what's important about a human is their communicative
|ability, it doesn't matter if they are speaking english or signing
|ASL.  The fact that someone is deaf and signing ASL has NOTHING to do
|with "handicaps" in this context.  It's just that insisting that a
|communicating human have working ears is irrelevant.

Or legs, or hands, or even eyes.

Again, what is so magical about *our* particular set of periperal equipment?
-- 
sarima@teradata.com			(formerly tdatirv!sarima)
  or
Stanley.Friesen@ElSegundoCA.ncr.com


