From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!ames!olivea!uunet!mcsun!uknet!edcastle!cam Mon Mar  9 18:35:46 EST 1992
Article 4312 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Turing Test: (was Monkey Room)
Message-ID: <18792@castle.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 6 Mar 92 11:30:07 GMT
References: <1992Mar4.210902.28435@psych.toronto.edu> <1992Mar5.165203.383@aifh.ed.ac.uk> <1992Mar5.233543.28060@psych.toronto.edu>
Organization: Edinburgh University
Lines: 56

In article <1992Mar5.233543.28060@psych.toronto.edu> michael@psych.toronto.edu (Michael Gemar) writes:

>But, as far as I can see, there is still no widely accepted criterion as
>to *what* the Turing Test even is.  For example, how long should it last?
>Are there any restrictions on the topics discussed?

As Turing made clear, the Turing Test, like the Chinese Room, is intended
as a thought experiment to assist in the clarification of views.

>This seems to me to be all the more
>relevant given the report on the net a few weeks back of the Turing "contest"
>in which some people identified a program as human.

[To err is human...]

The rules of games and contests should be set to produce the most
entertaining results for the audience and participants. Questions of
acience or philosophy are not settled by competitions or juries.

Turing hoped that the idea of the "Turing Test" would help to shift
people's attention away from tedious and unprofitable discussions about
such things as "what is thinking?", "define understanding!" and so on.
These questions are unprofitable we don't know what we are talking about.

Well, it was a good try!

As Turing wrote in "Computing Machinery and Intelligence":

	The reader will have anticipated that I have no very convincing
	arguments in support of my views. If I had I should not have
	taken such pains to point out the fallacies in contrary views.

But ...

	Conjectures are of great importance since they suggest useful
	lines of research.

[Corollary: conjectures which _don't_ suggest useful lines of research
should be looked at with suspicion.]

And ...

	We can see only a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty
	that needs to be done.

Many observers of this group would have supposed it impossible to find a
topic which would beat the Chinese Room for the number of posters
willing to expatiate at great length without having read the paper
supposedly under "discussion", but the Turing Test is showing up as a
very promising candidate.

I suggest a break while everyone goes away to read Turing's paper.
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205


