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Article 6808 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: sef@sef-pmax.slisp.cs.cmu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.ai,comp.robotics,comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Turing Indistinguishability is a Scientific Criterion
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Date: 7 Sep 92 15:07:24 GMT
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    From: ward@sun17.vlsi.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Ward)
    
    If I can push a nail into the wall with my own hands, then why would I build
    a hammer?
    
    If I can pull a plough, then why would I make a tractor?
    
    To get into the domain of computers; if I can perform 50 Gigaflops then
    why would I need a Cray?
    
    One does not make machines that merely duplicate human function - they must
    do it better.

Nonsense!  We make machines all the time that do jobs that a person could
do, but doesn't want to.  Consider automatic pilots, automatic door
openers, automatic elevators, home dishwashers, or even dial-operated
telephone exchanges.  One could argue that a human can do each of these
tasks better than the equivalent machine, but the human would get bored,
want to be paid a lot, go on strike, etc.  So a machine that does these
tasks WELL ENOUGH is valuable, even if it's not nearly as good as a human.
Then the humans can spend their time doing things that humans like better
(or, in certain economic systems, they can starve).

-- Scott


