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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Bag the Turing test (was: Penrose and Searle)
Message-ID: <D0Ip0D.7Gr@spss.com>
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References: <1994Dec8.000925.27355@oracorp.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 00:21:49 GMT
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In article <1994Dec8.000925.27355@oracorp.com>,
Daryl McCullough <daryl@oracorp.com> wrote:
>markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
[Daryl wrote:]
>>>As I said, the TT is not really about intelligence in all generality,
>>>it is about particularly those aspects of intelligence that are
>>>revealed through what we call "personality". 
>
>>Well, this is pretty much a restatement of my complaint, except that
>>you're reifying those aspects of intelligence tested by the TT.
>
>Those are the aspects of intelligence that are philosophically
>interesting. It may be an extremely difficult task to teach a robot to
>play violin or ride a bicycle, but those accomplishments are (in my
>opinion) without philosophical interest. 

Intelligence was once seen as more or less a branch of language and logic.
IMHO it's much more fruitful to see it as a biological ability, a tool
evolution's come up with for dealing with the environment and with peers.
From this point of view physical skills, from vision analysis to 
motor skills to mechanical abilities, are highly relevant to intelligence;
and language can be seen as an outgrowth and an enhancement of animal
intelligence rather than as a fuzzy substitute for predicate calculus.

I think AI has come to this realization, and so have some linguists (e.g.
Lakoff); if philosophers can't see it, so much the worse for philosophy.

>There is nobody (that I know
>of) who is philosophically opposed to AI because they think that
>machines can never ride bicycles (and the same for any other practical
>demonstration of skill). 

You're trivializing the problem here. Not that riding a bicycle is an easy
problem, but a robot that could be *taught* (not designed) to ride a 
bicyle, or to fix a bicycle, would be no small achievement, evidence of
at least a chimpanzee level of intelligence.  Add some more tests of nonverbal
behavior, and I'm sure you could work up a test of human-level intelligence;
a test that would have the advantage (over the Turing Test) of being
better applicable to aliens and robots.  Such a test wouldn't be a substitute
for the TT-- verbal ability is interesting too-- but it would be an
informative addition to it.
