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Article 5287 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Intelligence, awareness... oh no, back to the Turing Test!
Message-ID: <1992Apr27.173029.36491@spss.com>
Date: 27 Apr 92 17:30:29 GMT
References: <1992Apr24.154950.25222@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <1992Apr24.174822.29402@spss.com> <1992Apr27.083621.9441@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
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In article <1992Apr27.083621.9441@ccu.umanitoba.ca> zirdum@ccu.umanitoba.ca 
(Antun Zirdum) writes (quoting me):
>>To define intelligence by referring to the Turing Test is like defining a
>>dog as "something a human being calls a dog."  To say the least, we need
>>to go a bit deeper than that.
>
>There is nothing deeper than the bottom! I think that we are
>all making a mistake of looking for something that is not
>there, this is unlike looking for a black cat in a dark room
>- the cat is really there! As I have said before, What if anything
>do you do to determine that something is intelligent/aware. ( I
>combine these terms as I cannot imagine awareness without
>intelligence, and vice.v)

If you are right, that's bad news for AI.  If our analysis of intelligence
is limited to determining by a behavioral test whether it exists, there's
no chance of programming it.

Again, if humans have an ability to judge whether intelligence exists, they
must be using some criteria.  Is it really such a mystery what those
criteria are?  How about things like memory, abstract thought, language use,
real-world knowledge, creativity, adaptability, problem-solving, model-
building, goal-setting, consciousness, judgment?

True, we could use the Turing Test to gain indirect evidence for some of
these things.  But we have other means of investigation, too-- for brains,
introspection and neurology; for computers, inspection of the algorithm.
Why should we not use them?

>Your dog comparison is a dog, to say the least! By defering to
>the turing test, we define a dog as something that belongs to
>a certain genus, and has four legs, and barks, and....

What do you mean by "deferring to the Turing Test" here?  If you mean
that you use behavior to decide what's a dog or not, your own list
betrays you: having four legs is not behavior!  

In fact we regularly use non-behavioral criteria in assigning things
to categories.  This offers no support for the Turing Test!

But you're missing my point.  As your own remarks show, "dog" is not a
semantic primitive; it is composed of underlying defining characteristics.
My point was that treating "dog" as a primitive would be absurd; and
that by analogy treating "intelligence" as a primitive is just as foolish.


