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From: markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder)
Subject: Re: Bag the Turing test (was: Penrose and Searle)
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References: <1994Dec8.000925.27355@oracorp.com> <3c7ckl$9i7@news1.shell>
Date: Thu, 8 Dec 1994 18:23:55 GMT
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In article <3c7ckl$9i7@news1.shell>, Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com> wrote:
>>markrose@spss.com (Mark Rosenfelder) writes:
>>>It's a fascinating question, how people would really react to intelligent
>>>TT passers.  I am going by what anti-AI writers claim they would do; 
>>>you're sure that faced with the real thing, their skepticism would vanish.
>>>That may be-- it's hard to believe that Searle has really tried to 
>>>picture to himself what passing the TT really means-- but this conclusion
>>>may be defeated by human prejudice.  Humans are ready enough to treat 
>>>other members of their species as less than human; why should we expect
>>>them to treat AIs any better?
>
>I have been searching out comparisons between refusal to accept the TT
>and racism.  Is this meant to be one?  Some people who are skeptical of
>the TT feel offended by these comparisons even when no one explicitly
>equates the two views.  

Well, I could hardly be equating "refusal to accept the TT" with racism
when I am skeptical about the TT myself.  I *was* making an analogy between
anti-AI prejudice and human prejudice, however.

>They seem to be frequently linked rhetorically.
>Would you care to state what you see as the similarities and
>differences between the two?

Well, both seem to involve a prejudged attitude that the Other is less 
than human: e.g. the homophobe may have never knowingly met any homosexuals, 
but he is sure they are detestable; Searle has never met an AI, but he's
sure nonetheless that they can't "understand".  (Prejudices of both kinds
can survive contact with the despised; at least, we know this is true of
interhuman prejudices; we don't know about Searle.)

As for differences, there is evidently a greater ontological and ethical 
confusion in the case of AIs: we may have the intention to treat them 
fairly, but how do we know if we're dealing with an AI or not?  And if
we are, what are the ethical consequences?  There is no consensus on
either question.
