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Article 2947 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: jeff@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Intelligence Testing
Message-ID: <6031@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 21 Jan 92 01:07:44 GMT
References: <1992Jan18.150345.15050@oracorp.com>
Reply-To: jeff@aiai.UUCP (Jeff Dalton)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 64

In article <1992Jan18.150345.15050@oracorp.com> daryl@oracorp.com writes:
>Jeff Dalton writes:
>
>> I suspect that what you're getting at is that if I think conversation
>> without understanding is impossible, then I should accept the Turing
>> Test, because whenever there was conversation there would (in my view)
>> have to be understanding.  

(Remember that I'm using myself as an example, not presenting
my actual beliefs.  If you think that makes this whole discussion
pointless, then good; we can drop it.  But I do think there is
a distinction here, and I do think that the TT is not a good test.
Where my actual views diverge is that I think it may well be
possible to have conversation w/o understanding.)

>I just don't get it. You believe that "conversation without
>understanding is impossible", but you don't believe "conversation
>implies the existence of understanding"? I don't understand the
>distinction

The distinction is between believing X and being willing to
rely on X as a test of something.

>> Well, if I could _show_ that conversation was impossible without
>> understanding, then I should indeed accept the Turing Test. But
>> I can't show it's impossible, and neither can the people who want
>> us to accept the TT right now.
>
>Why does anyone have to _show_ that it is impossible? The Turing Test
>isn't a proof of intelligence, it is just supposed to constitute
>empirical evidence. 

Why is it such good evidence?  Because it works for people?
So what?

>I don't see how you can believe that conversation
>is impossible without understanding without believing that conversation
>is empirical evidence for understanding.

I don't see any necessary connection between conversation and
understanding.  It might nonetheless turn out that, say, artificial
understanding is impossible and the TT wins that way.

>> The arguments for accepting the TT right now do look rather like
>> residual operationalism and behaviorism.  They often involve saying
>> (or implying) that there's no way to test for "real understanding",
>> that the question of "real understanding" is meaningless or
>> unscientific, and so on.
>
>The argument for accepting the Turing Test right now is simply that,
>right now, there are *no* examples of beings able to pass the Turing
>Test that we don't consider to possess understanding. That is, the
>Turing Test is empirically valid for exactly the same reasons that
>your belief that conversation without understanding is impossible.
>The validity of the Turing Test seems to me to be implied by your
>belief that conversation without understanding is impossible, so I
>don't see how you can accuse supporters of the Turing Test are
>stinking behaviorists.

Thinking something is true and thinking one has good reasons
for thinking it true are two different things.  There's really
no mystery about this.

-- jd


